Not my Time
by Pinbreaker
Summary: Lily Waters was abused until Kaname stole her away from her father. At first Lily's time at Cross Academy seems like a dream, but soon her dream dissolves into a nightmare. As the shocking reality reveals itself, Lily doubts everything - including her own past. R&R, please! I am still revising chapters, but chapter 23 is uploaded! :D
1. I Got Away

**This chapter is more like an introduction than an actual chapter. I tried to revise it a little to make it longer, but I found out why I'd liked the length so much. I'll be going through this story to make more revisions and changes as I get the time. I have no intention of allowing this fiction to be abandoned; I just haven't had any time (until now) to edit and continue with it. I hope you enjoy it - it definitely gets better as it goes along. :D**

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_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, and will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody take my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter One: I Got Away

Lying in a bed of shattered glass was probably one of the most uncomfortable and horror filled events that had ever happened to me. It wasn't as if I were lying down willingly either. A firm, booted foot was keeping me down on it. It crushed my ribs and squeezed my lungs. I was screaming, crying, and struggling but I could not get him off of me. I felt my blood leaving me, and at some point I even thought I could smell it. Just as I began to believe I could take it no longer, my dad passed out.

He fell where he once stood. I slowly picked myself up, stumbled – nearly crawled – up the stairs, grabbed the bag that I always left prepared for desperate times, then headed out of my house.

I felt as if I were in one of those dreams where all you want is to wake up and feel relieved that none of the dream actually happened. However, I knew this was one dream that I could never wake up or be safe from. And if it did, it would not happen in my house with my drunken father.

As usual after a beating like the one today, I went to an old graveyard that I could reach through the woods behind my house. My mom was buried there, and I would sit by her grave and cry my heart out while I lamented all my troubles.

I never really knew what drew me to this particular spot every time I felt hurt and alone, but I figured it had something to do with when and how she had died.

My mom died in a tragic car accident on her way to work when I was six. I remember that day in flashes. It was about ten days after March 21st, my birthday where she had given me my first sketchbook – a book I treasured with all my heart because of how happy she had been as she gave it to me. I don't remember if I was close to my mom before she was gone, but I know for a fact that things would have been different if she had been here.

Soon after my mother's death, my father began to drink. Before her death he drank occasionally, but after the police officer brought the ill tidings, he was almost never seen without a beer bottle in his hand. My brother and sister who used to be close to him were slowly pushed aside. He even stood apart at the funeral. The part that angered me most during the terrible ordeal was that our family should have supported each other, but instead our family drifted apart.

When I was ten and my father was well into his drunken stupor, my older sister Mandi and I were being hurt almost every day. After a particularly bad beating, Mandi decided to leave. Since my older brother was twenty and in college, I knew I would be alone if she went, so I begged her to take me with her. She refused, and sometime during the night, she escaped out the window of her room. I never saw her again. And I was officially alone. Our family was effectively split.

The town we lived in was small and though rumors abounded and spread like wildfire, nobody cared enough to actually do anything. Plus, I had laughed some of it off since I didn't want to go to a foster home where new terrors could await me. Despite the possibility of a better home somewhere, I was afraid of the unknown future ahead of me.

These things I confided only to my sketchbook. Although I needed to tell someone, I knew that my secret must never be brought to light. My sketchbook provided a way to release the horrors in my life without giving away any of it to someone who would go to the authorities.

However, I did not get a chance to confide secrets to my sketchbook that day because there was a man in the graveyard. At first, I thought it strange, but then figured he had found a relative had died and was buried in the obscure graveyard. In any case, I went back to my own self-loathing. It wasn't until a hand gently brushed back my auburn colored hair that I looked up and saw him towering over me.

He had either black or dark brown hair and maroon eyes. He appeared paler than the average human, but I refused to judge him since I imagined that I looked as if I had recently been dragged out of the depths of hell itself, so I lowered my emerald green eyes to look back at the ground. I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid of this handsome stranger. Part of this fear was a result in our difference in height, but another part of it was due to the darkness that seemed to engulf him.

Yet when he offered me his hand, I hesitated only a moment before taking it. After years of fearing foster care, I was willing to place myself in the trust of a fearsome looking stranger who hadn't even spoken to me.

Soon after taking his hand, I began to feel faint. My eyelids grew heavy, and although I attempted to stay awake, an exterior force seemed to counter my attempts easily. In my mind I rationalized this sensation as being caused by a loss of blood, but as I fell out of consciousness I could have sworn that the stranger's eyes had gone from maroon to red.

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Please review! I really appreciate feedback!


	2. From Illinois to Japan

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody take my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time_

_A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Two: From Illinois to Japan

When I woke up I was in a bed in an almost completely white room. Right away I knew I wasn't in my room because my bed wasn't this comfortable, or this clean. Besides, I more or less slept curled up in a ball on the floor in a corner.

A question escaped my lips as I drifted back into unconsciousness, "Where am I?"

When I woke up again there was a man sitting on the chair next to my bed. Maybe he had brought me here. Maybe he could give me some answers to my questions.

"Ogenki desu ka? - How are you?" he asked me. I stared at him. Why was he speaking Japanese?

Slowly I recovered and then answered, "Fine..." I was suddenly glad for my love of the Japanese language. Although some people in America could have seen Japanese as a useless language, the moment I woke up in a Japanese hospital made all the lessons worth it – even if my knowledge of the language was limited to the animes I watched and the mangas I read.

"Good, you were pretty hurt when you were brought here," he informed me. He smiled sadly.

I couldn't help wondering to myself, _Does he really care?_ I was uncertain because I had never been shown any care from anyone before. So many people just let it happen. Well, maybe that was partly my fault too, but... almost nobody bothered to ask anyway. So, why now?

I studied him closely. He was young, handsome with short, brown hair, and soft chocolate colored eyes. He was tall, but not too tall. His clothes made it obvious that he was a doctor of some kind. Timidly I looked into his eyes, but felt embarrassed and looked away.

"I'm Doctor Hamasaki, by the way," he introduced himself.

"Oh- I'm Lily Waters," I whispered. I was starting to feel sick again. And, to be completely honest, wanted him to go away so I could be alone. I wanted to be able to think over a few things, but he looked as if he had some questions.

He took a small notebook out from a pocket, then turned back to me. I watched him without emotion.

"That's good to know," he told me as he got a pen ready. "I need to know some basic information about you so that we can contact your family members of your location and condition."

I nodded, understanding the importance of the information, but also aware that as soon as he had the information he'd be contacting my father. I watched him write my name and then told him, "I'm fourteen and I'm from Sleepy Hollow, Illinois." I ended the sentence a little slowly as it fully sank in that it was near impossible for me to suddenly be in Japan. I must have been unconscious for at least half a week.

The doctor looked up sharply. "Illinois? In America?" he asked, unable to fully fathom my answer. "The man who brought you here informed us that he'd found you outside Kyoto – close to Cross Academy."

"Oh," I replied, surprised at this bit of news. "Yes. That-that's because I was vacationing near there. How long have I been out?"

"A couple days," he answered without looking up from his notebook. When he did look up he answered more specifically, "About five."

I felt uncomfortable under his watch, but when I tried to shift my position, a steady pain rose from my chest and I couldn't help but gasp as he gently pushed me back down to the bed. He explained my situation soon afterward, "You have to be careful, you have a few broken ribs, as well as a shattered right wrist. You probably will have to be here for a while, so take it easy."

I nodded and tried to relax in the bed. Then I almost whimpered, "I don't understand how I got here."

He nodded. "It's common to not remember or understand right away. You'll remember in time."

He smiled sympathetically at me as he gathered his things and left the room.

**Time lapse**

I had been in the hospital for more than three weeks, and I was feeling much better. I could sit up and draw, and the doctors were happy to see that I was filling out. They'd been very worried about me due to the lack of "meat on my bones." I had become very comfortable with how things were going – even though I was in a hospital in Japan. It wasn't so much the atmosphere – no, definitely not – as it was the lack of occurrences throughout the day. I no longer had to be concerned about waking up to another nightmare.

The hospital room was quiet except for the beeping of the heart monitor I was on, and this silence slowly helped to reassure me that I was in a safe place with kind people who were doing their best to help me get better.

The memories of my past abuse were growing dimmer as the time passed. After three weeks of lying in a blissfully quiet hospital room, I managed to convince myself that the abuse had been ended completely. Certainly three weeks would have been more than enough time to locate my father, and the only explanation in my mind as to why they hadn't found him was because he did not want me. Although initially it pained me to feel so unwanted by my own family, after more thought I determined that I was happier without my father. If he let me go, I might never have to brave a beating again. In fact, the way all the doctors and nurses treated me, I was certain that the worst time in my life had come to a close. My nightmare was finally over.

"Are you ready to talk with someone, Lily-san?" a nurse asked as she peered into my room.

I nodded a little, wondering who could possibly have taken an interest in me while I was in a hospital in Japan. For a moment I wondered if my father had managed to contact someone about finding me, and I shivered at the thought of having to go back to my "home." Somehow after getting my hopes up about a better life, going "home" was no longer an option. If my father was indeed asking for me to be returned to him, I would fight him. I could never go back to that place.

A man with shoulder length brown hair and deep maroon eyes walked into the room along with a blond haired, green eyed companion. Both immediately struck me as extremely handsome, and I thought I recognized the brown haired one from somewhere.

"Hello," the brown haired man greeted me, a soft smile gracing his lips. "I am Kaname Kuran and this is Takuma Ichijou."

"Hello," I replied shyly. I felt my cheeks flush a little, and didn't allow myself to meet their eyes.

"We were just in town and I thought I should check up on you," Kaname continued. "I was the one who brought you here. You probably don't remember."

That was it. He was the one who had brought me to this place of refuge. That was where I knew him from.

"Yes. Thank you for that," I replied, my voice was strangely devoid of any emotion. I guess that was to be expected though. I had just been abused for about seven years. I hadn't had a lot of social interaction before now, so I was already nervous due to the strangeness of speaking to people – let alone the fact that I was speaking to perhaps the most handsome man I'd ever met. Plus, there was still that strangeness about him I just couldn't place.

"Yes. You're welcome. I couldn't just leave you," Kaname reminded me. "Next week there is going to be someone else who visits you. His name is Kaien Cross. He is the headmaster of Cross Academy, a private school just outside of here – Kyoko." He paused, then must have figured he should explain further. "He is going to meet you to decide if he wants to adopt you. I don't mean to say that I think he'll say 'no' when he meets you – no, quite the opposite – but he tends to be a little … enthusiastic over new people. Don't let him frighten you."

He smiled at me thoughtfully before turning to his companion. "Well, I think that's all I needed to say. I think we should go now, Takuma." He turned back to me. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances, Lily."

I didn't know what to say to that, but knew I had to say something. "Yes, of course," I replied stupidly.

He chuckled a little at my reaction while his companion smiled at me placidly.

As they both walked out, I felt my mouth curve up into a small smile just because I felt wanted by someone. It had been a long time since I had been wanted by anyone, and I had begun to believe I would never be wanted again.

_Maybe things are looking up afterall_... I allowed myself to think as I relaxed back into my pillows. _Maybe I really won't have to go back to my father. _

The thought of never having to go back to my abusive father was a happy one - a calming idea that made it possible for me to wonder exactly what my future could hold. To wonder if I could be given the opportunity to laugh and be a joyful little girl once again. At least, if I still remembered how to be a joyful little girl... A troubling thought crossed my mind at the horror of not knowing how to be legitimately happy - considering that I had last been truly happy when I was a six year old. Before the abuse had begun.

_Please remember..._ I willed myself as tears formed at the corners of my eyes. It wasn't until they trickled down that I realized I was the only one who could make myself happy again. Events, places, and people could never decide that for me, and now that I understood that I was the one who made a difference in my life, I was determined to do anything in my power to become a strong, happy individual once again.

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Finished updating chapter two! Hopefully this chapter is better now...

Please, let me know if there are any significant errors!


	3. A New Dad

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, and will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody take my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time_

_A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Three: A New Dad

Sure enough, the next week a man with long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail and a few bangs scattered across his forehead came to my room. Because of Kaname's warning, I was aware of who he was.

He smiled broadly as he entered the room with a man who's stature was shorter than his. The man who came in with him wore a suit and carried a clipboard with some papers and a pen. Obviously this was a social worker from the child protective services.

"Hello, Lily," the man greeted, plastering a professionally fake smile on his face. "This man is Kaien Cross. We're here because Mr. Cross has expressed an interest in adopting you. We'd like to be made aware of any problems you have with this so that we will be able to address them. Now, I want you to be aware that this adoption is strictly temporary. As soon as a suitable home is found in the United States, you will have to leave Mr. Cross' household."

For a moment I took in the two men. They both looked professional and good-natured. They were well dressed and it would appear that Mr. Cross was very excited to be meeting me. I could see immediately that Mr. Cross was a kind and caring man because his eyes displayed his emotion like an open book. Although adopting me was temporary, I could tell that he would treat me as if I were one of his own daughters - not just a child who needed looking after while another family was located.

Of course, I didn't have many questions about the adoption process, but I was concerned with where Mr. Cross lived and what he did for a living. I wanted to know if he was the kind of man who could stand up for what was right; the kind of man that would protect me above everything else.

Timidly, I told the social worker, "I – I would like to know a little about Mr. Cross."

The social worker's eyebrows rose a little, not because he thought it was a strange question, but because he was surprised he hadn't already informed me of Mr. Cross' career and family.

"Of course," he whispered understandingly. "Mr. Cross is the headmaster of a very prestigious boarding school called Cross Academy. I know for certain that he plans on enrolling you in the school, if you wish to go home with him. Mr. Cross has two other adopted children. One is a boy named Zero Kiryuu and the other is a girl named Yuuki. You are younger than both of them since Zero is sixteen and Yuuki is fifteen. If you decide to go with Mr. Cross, you will be enrolled in the same class as they are. Mr. Cross is very respected in society. Is there anything else you would like to know?"

I shook my head. Although I was happy to feel wanted, the idea of living in an unfamiliar home still made me nervous. And nothing in the world could make me less afraid. Mr. Cross could be the kindest person on the planet and I would still hesitate before allowing myself to be turned over to him. That was why it had to come down to one basic fact: I never wanted to see my father again, and now that I was in Japan, I had a way out.

I nodded after hearing the social worker talk about my adoption, my face still a little devoid of emotion. I wasn't sure how I should feel. I felt like everything was changing so fast. So suddenly. It seemed as if it had just been last month that I would be escaping, or attempting to escape, my father's wrath right about this moment. It felt like a dream where, at any moment, I would awaken to find myself back in the old, cold, and mold infested attic room of my old house. As if I would wake up with the same fear of being too loud when I went to the bathroom to attempt to clean myself up for a day of school, or as if I would wake up to the banging on my door caused by my father in a drunken rage. So many things felt unreal, and this event – Mr. Cross' wish to adopt me – seemed to be the most unreal of all.

I looked at both of them. I would be in a good, safe school, and I wanted a father who loved me like my dad used to - and Mr. Cross looked so hopeful and kind-hearted. Truly, I didn't believe that becoming Mr. Cross' "daughter" would be a harmful decision. What could be the worst thing that could possibly happen to me while I was at a _school_?

The social worker smiled as Mr. Cross hugged me. "You will be so happy! I have another daughter!"

Mr. Cross looked at me with an affectionate smile, his eyes sparkling happily.

With that they left. Strangely, I felt like laughing, something inside was trying to wake up. But I was still so scared of getting hurt. It was a new beginning, but would it be a happy one? What if people didn't like me? How did people here act? I'd never been out of the sleepy town of Sleepy Hollow before. I had never been in a town with more than 500 residents, and the prospect of being around so many people continuously had me concerned.

I tried to relax, but I couldn't. It was now impossible to stop thinking about the new school I was currently being enrolled in and the prospects of my future life. My head was reeling with thoughts, both good and bad. And all I could do was lie in bed and think. Quickly, I grabbed my sketchbook, ready to allow my emotion out and see how stupid it was. Tomorrow I would begin my new life; I wouldn't have any friends, but I would have my memories. And I would be able to create new ones as well.

Sighing I lay back on the bed and prayed that everything would go as smoothly as I hoped.

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Chapter three revised! I didn't add as much to this chapter as I did to the others. I'm trying really hard to fix chapter five, and it is monopolizing my time.

Please alert me to any grammatical errors! I appreciate it!


	4. The First Day of School

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Four-The First Day of School

Two days later I was introduced to all my new classmates, that was probably one of the most _embarrassing _and _humiliating_ moments of my measly life. I mean I am standing up here in this skimpy uniform, with chicken legs that must look awful, and there are _boys_ in the class. I was never so happy for American customs with school. It didn't make it much better that the teacher didn't just say my name and age, she made me do it, then sat me next to one of the most hated girls in the class, Yuuki Cross.

I guess I got seated beside her since she was my "sister". Oh well, better her than with Zero. Zero was intense, when Mr. Cross tried to introduce us, he got all ticked and left, leaving me feeling intensely awkward. I mean what had I ever done to him? I guess I had that type of atmosphere toward guys, it just made them want to stay away. Only in this case it wasn't such a good thing. We would practically be living together, especially if our "father" made as many dinner plans for all of us, which Yuuki said he did when she had shown me around the school. I hope he got over whatever bug had bit him and fast.

I didn't realize that the lunch bell had rung until I heard everyone screaming about some Night Class or some boys complaining about how insane the girls always acted. I was further pulled out of my din by Yuuki tapping my shoulder and saying, "Do you want to eat lunch with me and Yori? It can be a little daunting with so many people you don't know," she said happily, but when she saw my near unemotional face she added more slowly, "but if you don't want to, that's okay. I mean it's your choice, but join us if you like."

It took my head a while to process what she said ... lunch with others... not sitting by myself in the library... with nothing to do but wait for the next bell. That's right nobody was here to beat me up after school. "Sure, I'll eat lunch with you," I said suddenly. I flashed a small smile. This was the first step to my new life, I was sure. All I had to do was make sure I kept on taking the steps and I'd be fine, right?

So, for the first time in about eight years, I ate lunch. I sat with others. And though I didn't say much, Yuuki seemed to hold down a whole conversation by herself anyway, I felt happy being able to overcome a boundary. I just hoped it would remain that way.

"So who do you like most in the Night Class?"

I sighed. Was that all these girls would talk about? So many of them were talking about the "Night Class" I could hardly hear Yuuki's near one sided complaining of her getting extra classes after school that day and Yori telling her if she would sleep at night instead of in class, it wouldn't happen.

Eventually I would have to ask about it though, it was getting annoying, and I was curious, so I asked, "Yuuki, what's the 'Night Class'?"

"They're this elite group of students who can study at night," Yori told me. "Most of the girls are crazy for them, they each have a favorite."

"Oh, so who's _your_ favorite, Yori?" I asked her. I mean there must be a reason she sounded a little annoyed, I hope it wasn't because of me asking such a meaningless question though.

"None of them, they all give me the creeps," Yori responded. "I don't know why, but there's this really strong aura coming from them and it just... bothers me."

Yuuki looked at me with amusement on her face as she said, "You ought to go down and look for yourself, Lily, they all parade from their dorm, the moon dorm, to the school at every twilight. I'll be there," her face fell a little, "I have to be there."

I realized her face looked depressed and I faintly remembered Mr. Cross saying she was on the Disciplinary Committee, so she must have to be there to keep all of the students in line. Probably literally.

I grinned and said, "Yeah, maybe I'll go and see if they're as handsome as everyone says. Don't worry, Yuuki, I'll keep out of your hair. I'm not really boy crazed, quite the opposite."

She relaxed visually. And just as she sighed, and relaxed, the bell rang. Time for the next class, Yuuki froze up again and looked suddenly tired.

"It's PE," she groaned. "I bet we're riding horses again, too." She looked at me and mumbled, "never ride White Lily. The horse is crazy."

"We'll be late if we wait any longer," Yori sighed and then stood up and we all filed out.

I was right. This was a prestigious school. It had horses. Well, so did my old school, if you counted that we could ride on them to school and leave them in a barn all day if we claimed and kept upkeep on a stall in time. I knew for sure that was what I had done since the "legal" age of nine. I would ride Kidd the Horse through the woods surrounding my house everyday about an hour before the bell rang and would spend all that time grooming and pampering him. He was probably one of my only friends up there, he was the only one who knew my secrets. But there was only one problem, he was a horse, and though they were really good secret keepers, they also were hard to put on a friend list without making the owner look like a nut. But I was happy for my horse anyway.

We first had to go and get the riding clothes on, luckily they had a spare that fit me, or maybe, unluckily. Either way, I was riding, so I preferred to be dressed in more than a mini skirt. But then I was assigned "the Horse from Hell" Lily. It was a prank, since I was the new student. I bet this would definitely ruin my image at this school.

"Oh, I feel bad for you," Yori muttered sympathetically. "Good luck, you're going to need it."

"Why don't we swap horses?" I asked. Then in a begging voice I added, "please, Yori, I don't need to look like an idiot on the first day."

She shook her head. Obviously I would have to ride Lily. Oh well, maybe if I talked to her and tried to calm her down, she'd let me ride her.

"Hey, Lily," I crooned. She turned her head to look at me and I continued, "Lily, I'm going to ride you today. My name's Lily too." When I was close to her head and about to reach for the reins, I wondered if we had been through the same thing at one point. "Were you hurt, too?" I looked at her in the eye as I untangled the reins attached to the fence post. She watched me cautiously but she had a curious, horsey look in her eye as well. When I had the reins firmly in my hands I clucked lightly and guided her around so I could use the fence as a mounting block, since she was a pinch tall for me. "I'm going to get on now, Lily. Is that alright?" When she nodded her head, I shifted my weight then grabbed one of the stirrups with my right hand then carefully positioned my foot in it before taking hold of the reins, pommel, and the cantle and then swinging myself up gracefully. I landed softly and shifted my weight before whispering, "there. Not so bad if I do say so myself." I reached down and adjusted my stirrup leathers to a shorter length since I liked to ride with short stirrups.

After that I became aware of a few whispers. "She tamed White Lily... the Horse from Hell likes the new girl... look! She didn't have any problem at all!" Then I looked up and realized all eyes were turned toward me. Now I was nervous, but I had a whole half hour left until the end of class! They couldn't be that fascinated for long, could they?

"Wow, I'm impressed," I heard someone whisper to me. I looked over shoulder and saw Zero next to me on a different horse.

"Oh, Zero-kun," I whispered nervously, "I-uhm... Why do you say that?"

He looked surprised then told me, "normally only I can ride White Lily. Every other person is scared stiff of her."

"Well, I'm not. I came from a small town, so riding head-strong horses is second nature to me. I trained my own horse when I was four," I informed him a little haughtily. Then I whispered mostly to myself in remembrance, "my father taught me."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry for the way I acted toward you before. I thought that I should let you have a second opinion since, after all, we're going to be brother and sister," he grinned at the end of this statement. And I smiled in return.

"We're already alike," I laughed implying how we could both ride the "insanely difficult" horse.

"Yeah, I guess we are," he grinned then he waved and rode off to go do some jumps.

I sighed and then went over to the circular arena and proved that I could ride Lily with ease. Afterward I went over and just cantered in the fields where there weren't any other people riding. I relaxed for a while and talked to Lily until the end of class and then promised to see her later.

I walked back to class with Yori and Yuuki after we changed out of the riding habits and back to our normal uniforms.

"I can't believe you could ride Lily!" Yuuki exclaimed at me on the way. "Nobody can ride her." She paused. "Well, except Zero."

I blushed. "Riding was a part of being in a small town," I told her shrugging. I hated to admit it, but I was a little embarrassed over all the attention I was getting just for riding a horse.

When Yori finally managed to change the subject, I sighed and gave her a quick gesture of thanks. The rest of the day passed by in a blur. A very bored blur that was filled with whispers about mainly: the Night Class who would be coming out in about two hours. I sighed and tried to not look like I wasn't paying attention to anything that our math teacher said. When the final bell rang, I sighed and almost got run over by the stampede of insane girls when I was getting out of my desk.

As I finally managed to get out, Yuuki caught my arm and practically begged, "can't you stay with me in the extra classes? It gets so boring!"

I shook my head and told her, "sorry, Yuuki, but I want to get my work finished. Besides, I really don't want to have extra classes."

I couldn't help but say the truth, I mean, I knew she was friendly to me, but I really didn't want to be bored again. So I left with every intention of going back to my dorm room and relaxing, but I inevitably got caught in the crowd of girls going out to see their beloved "Night Class boys".

_Oh well, _I thought, _I have my sketchbook in my bag, I'll just sit out there and draw. Since this is a new chapter of my life, I might as well be able to remember it later._

So, when I got out there I sat under a shady oak tree close to where the girls were and drew. I drew me riding White Lily and talking with Zero, Yuuki's horrified face when she found out she had the supplementary classes, and finally, because I couldn't resist, the fangirls. These were all the new chapters, I decided, but then because I had his face in my head I drew another extra drawing. One of Shawn.

Shawn was this person, I knew back in my town. He was the only one who really talked to me. It wasn't like I really was happy about that though. It made me feel special, but it also put my secret at risk. On Valentines Day one year, he practically bought out a whole stores supply of ribbons, flowers and chocolates. He then proceeded to read to me this incredibly long love poem he wrote to me, and then got down as his knees and asked me to marry him. What a nutcase, but nevertheless he still seemed to like me more than any of his other friends. At first when he began to talk to me, I thought it was some prank put up to him by his friends. That kind of thing happened on a regular basis to me there. But then I realized the truth when he began to come be with me in the library once in a while during lunch hour. He didn't even ask why I never seemed to eat or why it was I constantly had bruises. But it wasn't like he didn't care, no, I saw the way he'd look at me in a sidelong glance, his eyes filled with worry. I wasn't that oblivious.

The one thing that made me feel really guilty was that when he told me he liked me and asked me if I liked him back, I said no. It was so that he didn't find out my secret, of course but if I could go back to that time, I would have taken it back. Because it was the worst lie I had ever told, and no secret was worth so much.

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Thank you for the reviews!! (I totally agree with the way people say they would have reacted if the chairman treated them that way, it just doesn't fit Lily. But it does fit me :)

I hope that this chapter is well liked, I worked hard on it and tried to bring in more of her own personal character along with introducing another OC (Shawn). But he'll probably not be around for a while, he's just mentioned in other places, so I thought that people should know a little about who she refers to later.

Oh well, please review and tell me what you think!


	5. To Guard or Not to Guard

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Five: To Guard or Not to Guard

My life began to change after the first day of school. Well, okay, only a little bit. I became good friends with Yori and Yuuki, and Zero didn't glare at me very often. And I often saw him in the barn taking care of all the animals. Most of the time that was where I was too, so we actually became pretty good friends too, though we normally only talked together in the barn or in PE when we rode. I almost always was assigned Lily in the horseback class now, since I was the one who she actually turned her ears to and relaxed by. It made me feel special in a good way. Then at the end of the day I would, because Yuuki and Zero made me since I was their "sister", go and sit under a tree and draw while the Night Class students walked by. Once in a while I felt eyes on me from one of them, and would look up for a moment, but almost immediatly go back to my own work. They were just students, what did I care?

But not everything was as good as that. For example, my grades were not very good. Already teachers were getting onto me about turning in their assignments. I'd been in school for about one month, and already I was one of the most behind students, and apparently I'd plagiarized on my Research Paper and had gotten a zero.

That's why when I was called into the Chairmans office I was so nervous.

I stood outside the door, contemplating whether to knock on the door, or to run and hide. To be honest, I really thought he was having second thoughts on putting me into the school, or that someone from the small town of Sleepy Hollow had been reported missing by her father, teacher, or extremely obsessive crushing friend. Which would mean that it would be me, since it was a small town and I was in a prestigious school after coming from the extremely small town where almost nothing like that ever happened. I should have said I was from Chicago, a lot of people go missing there.

Slowly I raised my hand and knocked on the door, then prayed nobody was home.

"Come in!" called the Chairmen in a sing-song voice which made me relax and tense up at the same time.

I wasn't in trouble, but now I had to figure out why he wanted me to come here. I hope he didn't have any new recipes he wanted me to try. Again. Timidly I opened the door and then stepped in. I closed the door behind me quietly before asking, "you wanted to see me?"

"Yes," I was told, "come closer to the desk, Lily, it's not easy to talk across a room."

I blushed and then walked to the edge of the desk and stood next to Kaname. I didn't really wonder why he was here, he always seemed to be talking to the Chairman. I guess that since he was the Moon Dorm Leader he had to report everything to the Chairman.

"Now, Lily, you've been in school for a month now, you have made sufficient friends, you feel comfortable in your classes, so now we have a question to ask you," the Chairman explained.

I had to think first, 'feel comfortable in your classes', did plagiarism make it look like I was comfortable in class? Did failing grades make it look like I paid attention? Goodness, Japan had some strange customs. Nonetheless, I waited for him to continue, he could be being sarcastic or something.

"We need another guardian," he informed me. "And who would be better then one of the chairmans own daughters?"

He grinned and I groaned. I thought that cruel and unusual punishment was illegal under the bill of rights. Oh, that's right, I'm in Japan. But I bet it could still apply here!

"Do I have to?" I groaned, hoping that the answer was "no, I just thought...", but I knew I'd be wrong.

"It's either that or you go to supplementary classes for a month and re-do the plagiarized essay for your language arts class, then stay for more extra classes for all of the F's you're getting in math and science class," he told me for once serious. Kaname looked at me with a small twinkle in his eye, like he found this amusing.

I sighed and looked down at the floor. Then I decided, maybe the guardian job would help me in my journey to the New Me. "I'll do it," I told them.

"Good," the chairman grinned.

I felt Kaname's hand on my shoulder. I slightly recoiled and tried to move away, and when I looked up I saw his face grow a little confused. I guess any other girl would just about die if he even tapped them.

With a gentle and yet firm look on his face he told me, "Lily, there are some things you need to know first before you begin though."

I nodded, and then waited for him to go on.

"Lily, have you ever heard about the vampire myths?" he asked.

I nodded slowly.

Kaname continued, "those are not stories, they are true, well not all of it, but vampires do exist."

I looked at him with confusion written all over my face. What had this to do with anything? Did he have a screw loose or something? Or was he trying to tell me something?

He sighed as he said, "Lily, all the night class students are vampires. I'm a vampire. That's why we need guardians. So that the Day Class-the humans- can be safe." He paused. I felt myself trembling and he tried to pull me against him, but I resisted. He was a vampire? How could I not have seen this coming? All of the Night Class students were beautiful, they all were smart and easily charmed the Day Class girls. Their whole attitude probably could have told me that! Goodness, I _was_ oblivious...

Finally he asked, "Are you scared? Are you scared of me now?"

I shook my head 'no', but inside myself I was saying, 'yes, yes I am scared, I'm scared of you, I'm scared of others, scared of the future, scared of everything, I've been scared my whole life, and that's why I must do this.'

"You don't have to do it, if you don't want to anymore," Kaname whispered soothingly.

But I shook my head and told him firmly, "No, I'll do it and I'll keep the secret. I can do it."

The last part was probably meant for myself, because I really wasn't sure if I could do it. But I sure was going to try to. I saw Mr. Cross smiling happily as he got up and hugged me tightly. Then he handed me an armband and then I turned to go.

I knew I was scared, I guess I always would be, but inside I was finding my strength. I was feeling more confident, but I was also still feeling frightened because I knew my new found confidence could be blasted soon. Very soon. But for now, I felt proud of myself. I was trying something new. Maybe a little too new, but I had to start somewhere.

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Thanks for all of the reviews!!

I hope that this chapter was just as good, or actually, better. I think that some things are starting to move forward.

Anyway, I think that my next update will be on the Wednesday (April Fools day) of next week, but I'm not sure because I have a bowling competition coming up in, like, exactly a week, so I may be practicing nonstop (or rocking in a corner-- the crowds are huge and my grandparents decided to come!) Anyway, that's what I'm planning.

Please review!!


	6. Idol and Wild

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody take my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time_

_A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Six: Idol and Wild

Conveniently I went missing as the Night Class left their dorms to go to school, and later Yuuki accused me of being scared. I guess she was right, but I tried not to let her know that. I swore to Yuuki that I'd be there the next day and every day after. For the most part.

I tried hard to be a good guardian, but by midnight I was dead tired. Glancing around I saw no Day Class students wandering around trying to take pictures of their Night Class idols, and since I hadn't seen any at all during my watch, I decided to take a nap. Thinking that taking a nap in a tree was a good idea since no one would be able to see me, I chose a branch that was large enough for me to position myself into a comfortable sleeping position on. However, it turned out to be a huge mistake since, coincidentally, I woke up an hour later, forgot I was in a tree, and rolled off the branch.

I don't know how I possibly managed to admonish myself for my stupidity as I fell from the height of the school building, but as my body hit practically every branch in the tree, I chastised myself and swore to never take such a risk again. Or at least to choose a lower perch.

After hitting the forest floor with enough force to knock a Rhino out cold, I simply watched the treetops swaying with the gentle breeze. It took me about a minute to even consider the possibility of broken bones and bruises, but miraculously I seemed to have suffered only one small gash on my left shoulder. Slowly I got to my feet, still amazed at my good fortune.

Too late I remembered that I was in an area surrounded by vampires who were attracted to the faintest smell of blood. Before I could make a hasty retreat to care for my wound, I heard voices approaching at an inhuman speed.

"Uh... she's so clumsy..." a voice in the distance laughed. I blushed then heard another one reply, "You should leave her alone... you know what happened last time..." The first one laughed at his friend's idea and continued, "It's all fun and games. She likes it."

I knew by then who it would probably be since Yuuki had warned me in advance of what Hanabusa Aidou liked best. Blood.

Quickly I grabbed my Artemis Rod and swung it out as the cousins stepped into the clearing. I managed to swing it right into Akatsuki Kain's chest. At least one thing had gone right tonight. I could effectively protect myself. For the time being.

"Uhh! Goodness, good aim!" he grunted as he stumbled back and took a good look at me. I turned my head away and looked at Aidou who was my main concern since Kain was mellower. The blond haired vampire looked completely unprepared when he saw me.

"You are not Yuuki," Aidou said in surprise, but he quickly regained his charisma as he asked, "Who might you be, holding an Artemis Rod so much like Yuuki?"

"I'm Lily, the new guardian," I informed him steadily, although I could hear the anxiety in my voice. I bet I was shaking in terror. I was too new at this to not be a little frightened, but there was no way that my words would convince them I meant what I said if I didn't sound confident when I said it.

As I looked into Aidou's bright turquoise eyes, I wondered how someone so handsome could appear so dangerous to me. Then I remembered it was because of my father. He was handsome too. The handsomeness had helped me to laugh off his dark and cruel side. All I had to do was remind people that my father was the tall, dark, and handsome stranger that every woman wanted to fall in love with. That he was the one who had won the heart of the most generous and beautiful lady in our town. That he was the best father and spent all of his time caring for his family. That he was my dad, and I desperately wanted him to know that, no matter how much he hurt me.

The next thing I knew Aidou was stepping toward me as he said, "Ah, yes, Kaname-sama said there was a new member of the Disciplinary Committee. He didn't say it was a girl, or that she would be so delicious looking. And smelling."

He grinned as he took another step toward me, and I resisted dropping my weapon and running, even I knew that running was useless against a vampire. In any case, it would probably make it worse, much worse. I felt someone grab my Rod and then felt him trying to force one of my hands to drop the Rod, so he could pull me towards him. I struggled against him, but obviously a vampire's strength was nothing compared to mine.

Hoping against hope, I glanced at Kain who only looked at me for a second. Desperately I looked into his warm brown eyes and tried to send him the message that I was hopelessly scared and defenseless. He turned his back on me, causing me to stare at him in disbelief. Fury filled me as I silently cursed Kain's back.

My momentary distraction with Kain allowed Aidou to easily knock the Artemis Rod from my hands. I wanted to shout and hit myself for being so pathetically stupid for getting caught in these two vampires' game. When I felt a wetness on my shoulder, I realized Aidou was licking me.

Furiously I glared at him only to see that his eyes were blood red and that he was trying to pull me closer still. My heart pounded in my chest as I thought how much worse this was than what my dad did. At least my dad had the excuse of being drunk!

"Aidou-senpai..." I whispered. After a few tries to no avail, I simply began whimpering, "no- stop" over and over again.

Tears trickled down my face. I didn't want to show a weak side to them because it was dangerous, but I couldn't move my arm to dry them, nor could I stop them.

When he had finished with my shoulder, I took advantage of his suddenly relaxed muscles. I ran, leaving my Artemis Rod as well as my school bag behind. When I was sure that they weren't pursuing me, I sat at the base of a tree and cried. The footsteps that came closer to my spot were dull, so I didn't realize anyone was there until I saw a familiar bag being dropped in front of me. I didn't look up or say anything. Maybe if I didn't respond the person would go away. Instead he sat down next to me.

For a while neither of us said anything. It was this that made me think that it was Kain, a quick glance to the side confirmed my theory. Finally he said, "I'm sorry for what Hanabusa did to you."

I said nothing.

He continued his one-sided conversation, "I told him to go back to the dorm and not to bother you again, as far as I know he listened."

I said nothing in return.

"I brought your bag back, but you're going to have to get the Rod yourself because vampires can't hold it for long."

I said nothing.

For a moment I could feel Kain watching me. Confusion and anger mingled with the fear I felt, and although I didn't know why he was still there, I knew that I couldn't trust him. After he had watched me struggling to get away from Aidou, he'd simply turned his back on me. Nothing he did could erase that act of indifference.

"Lily, just calm down," he said in a strangely comforting way. "Everything's all right now."

Finally I responded angrily, "Is everything all right now? If everything's all right, why are you here? Huh?"

For a moment Kain looked shocked at my tone, and for a moment I felt bad for being upset with him. I had only just met him, and our meeting had been under less than desirable circumstances. Suddenly I realized I had no right to judge him based on that single event which had been caused by my own stupidity.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, turning my attention back to the dirt in front of me.

"Don't be," Kain replied quickly. "Both Aidou and I are in the wrong. I should be the one to apologize. I should have done something to try to stop him. It's just that…" I glanced when he stopped speaking and watched as he shook his head.

"What? Just that what?" I asked.

Kain's brow was furrowed in confusion, and he shook his head again before answering, "Your blood smells irresistible… I've never smelled anything like it before in my life, and I've been around for a while now." He thought a moment before continuing, "I didn't trust myself to interfere."

I did not respond; although, what he said confused me immensely.

Kain cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Are you all right now?"

I nodded slowly, then I asked, "Why do you care so much? You're a rich vampire. Shouldn't I just be a simple-minded human to you?"

Kain shook his head. "No. Of course I don't think of you that way. I hate to see others hurt; I don't care what they are."

I smiled slightly at his response. Somehow the idea of a vampire caring about a human's well being seemed unusual.

For a while more Kain and I sat in comfortable silence. At some point I reached forward and took hold of my school bag. I could feel Kain's eyes watching me curiously as I pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some gauze. Even after more than a month here, habits were hard to break. Maybe it was a good thing in this case.

As I began to wet the gauze, Kain asked, "You carry bandages and disinfectant with you?"

I nodded slowly and made sure that the gauze was moist enough to be of use. Nonchalantly I reached up and began to wipe at my shoulder. It stung, but I forced myself not to react. I had been doing this for years, why should I react now anyway?

"Doesn't that hurt?" Kain asked. His voice didn't really sound that concerned, but the question almost made me laugh. It was the type of question only someone who healed quickly asked.

"No, it doesn't hurt, well... it stings, but that's okay," I told him in a voice just as bored as his. When I was satisfied that the wound was clean enough, I grabbed a bandage and expertly wrapped it around my shoulder with just the one hand. Kain watched me with interest.

"What?" I asked seriously. Nothing that I had done took any talent or skill. It was all instinct. Anyone could do it if they realized they had to because they might die of blood loss.

"How old _are_ you?" he asked, his eyes were wide and staring at me.

"I'm fourteen, and I'm old enough to know how to take care of myself," I told him seriously.

"Sorry," he mumbled guiltily. He turned to me with a smile and then added, "You should get back to your dorm, if you're out here any longer you'll be too tired to do anything tomorrow. Chairman's 'daughter' doesn't need to fall behind in her studies because of the vampires, does she?"

He said it playfully, but I winced all the same as I thought about school. "It's too late for that. My grades were failing before I even started attending class."

He laughed lightly, and viewed me with a critical eye, "I didn't think someone who was like you would be failing classes."

I shrugged, "Looks can be deceiving."

I stood, realizing dawn was approaching soon. If I wanted to get any sleep, I had to leave right away. As I picked my bag up, I reminded myself to find my Artemis Rod before leaving the forest.

As I headed off, I said to Kain, "I'll see you later. Thanks for talking with me."

"Same to you, Lily," he replied.

I headed off quickly, and with almost as much stealth as the vampires, to the clearing where I once stood terrified, so I could pick up my Rod before heading back to the Sun Dorm. I wasn't so scared now. In fact, I was glad that Kain had come to talk to me about what had happened. I didn't want to have bad thoughts about the vampires on my first night and not want to do the job after only one shot.

When I got inside, the first thing I did was strip off my dirty uniform and put on the clean nightgown that had been provided by my "father." Happily I lay down and closed my eyes, but it seemed as if I had only been asleep a minute before my alarm sounded. I groaned and pulled myself up. It was time for a new day.

* * *

Chapter Six has been revised! Phew... That was hard work... The fifteen year old me did not know how to write coherently...

Please, let me know if there are any significant errors! I greatly appreciate new sets of eyes.


	7. Memory Lane

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. At this point that would mainly be Lily._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Seven: Memory Lane

I couldn't help falling asleep off and on in all of my classes. They were so boring, and I was so tired. The equation didn't equal a great answer.

To make the day worse, it was a Wednesday, which meant that I had to survive two more days just like this. Plus, I would have to get the Night Class to their school today. I was not looking forward to it. I saw how those girls acted. I was not blind. I groaned inwardly and put my head down on my desk.

Recently I had been thinking about a long lost friend. It was one of the things that I would try to forget, it had always been easy in Illinois. However, now, when I was bored to tears in class, I would remember. At first I hadn't realized why, but now I was sure that it was because I wasn't preoccupied with thinking about my dad.

The day was long and almost all day I thought of my child hood friend Zita. Zita was the fun loving and care free girl who lived over two farms. I met her when I was twelve, and that was also the year that we never saw each other again. Because despite what everyone else thinks, Zita was abused too. Of course, her father didn't abuse her, neither did her mother. It was the foster home. All I could really remember, besides talking and riding horses a lot, was that one day she never showed up to our meeting place. She never said good-bye, and though the foster parents claimed that she had been relocated, I had this dreadful feeling that she was dead. Murdered. I remember the day that she never showed up the most in my life, it finally made it clear that I was lucky. I could have been dead by now. I had at that age of twelve, survived six years of abuse.

I went almost all the rest of the day with a dampened spirit. I didn't say much, and fought tears once in a while when I thought of the past. I couldn't focus on anything. Around the middle of the day, I began feeling sick and went to the infirmary eventually. There I was forced to lie down and take a nap, but that only made it worse and after ten minutes, I headed back to class.

When the Night Class came out I was feeling dead. I stood on the sidelines and if any girl tried to get passed me, I calmly put my foot in their path and watched them fall. They would learn to avoid me sooner or later.

They got even more loud and annoying when the Night Class came out. If that was even possible. Kaname glanced over at me, smiled, and then turned to talk to Yuuki. I almost smiled, I knew that Yuuki liked him, and it was obvious that Kaname liked her, and I was glad for her. Although Kaname still gave me the creeps. When I looked up next I saw Kain glance around until he found me and then gave me a small smile. Obviously he was happy that I hadn't dumped the job after one day.

I gave a small smile in return and then, satisfied that I was okay, he continued on talking to Aidou.

Aidou was cheerful, I noticed. He was excitedly waving at all of the girls and they in return were screaming. So annoying!! What were these people? Seriously, who was this crazy over boys?

Most of the others looked bored, with the exception- excluding the dramatic Aidou- a blond haired boy with green eyes who smiled pleasantly and calmly at his fangirls. He was standing near the back along with a boy who had a very dark maroon color of hair and slate gray eyes who stood close to a blond pigtailed girl with bright blue eyes, they both seemed utterly bored and tired with the situation. It figured.

By the time they had all made it to the school, most of the girls avoided me like they avoided Zero, and strangely I was wondering if that wasn't a good thing... It took them a while longer before they left, but once they did, we all sighed in relief. We then split up to go patrol in different locations. I watched as Yuuki went to look in a window to stare at Kaname for a while and almost laughed. Zero noticed too and I saw him sigh and continue towards the woods. I headed to the fountain where I was sure nothing bad could happen to me.

I sat on the edge and dipped my hand peacefully into the cool water. I sighed and thought about what could've been in my life... Believe it or not, my father use to be good. We use to go fishing every Friday since I was three and could cast a line. He use to take me to the park, to the fair, to anywhere I would want to go. And I remember my mother... how she was always so happy around him. In the end these memories were what I lived off of, if it were not for them I would have thought suicide a good alternative to my situation. However, they were also a curse. Memories meant that I still saw the good in him, that I still believed he could change, or rather unchange.

It was a boring night, no Day Class girls were wondering around in my section, so I took the initiative to pay attention to something. First I took out my sketchbook, only to realize that I had nothing to draw with, darn me forgetting my pencil in class again. Plan B was to take out the copy of Bleach in my school bag. I had read it about a hundred times already, it being the only one that I had kept in my 'rescue relief backpack' when I ran away. I hadn't thought that I would be going away for this long, normally I only ran away for at most three days. Mediocre, I think. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out that I wasn't really reading it again, I was more or less just turning a page every so-so minutes. Then what was I doing? What was I thinking? Nothing. Not really, I was just sitting in silence.

I sighed and let the book drop to the ground. It didn't matter, everything gave me memories. The manga that I read. Sometimes when my dad was upset and 'sick' he would tear it up, or burn it. In my spare time I would think of new hiding places for it. It was like so many other things in my life. It was all one big lie.

I put my hands over my face when suddenly there was a blood-curdling scream and then a loud 'splash'. Then I realized that it had come from right behind me when I wave of cold and wet, very wet, water hit me from behind.

I whirled around and exclaimed, "who caused that?" The only response was laughter from somebody that I couldn't see. I could feel murder in my eyes. This was one of my last uniforms, and I wasn't going to class in something wet or torn! And how dare some... person laugh at me at a moment like this! "Don't lose your cool over it Lily... don't lose it..." I muttered to myself.

The laughter came again, and it definitely came from a girl, it was a little high in pitch like it wasn't use to being used. "Where are you?" I called out in a whisper. I began walking around. The person was close, but why couldn't I see them?

"Oh! And I'm all wet!" came the voice again. That voice... it sounded faintly familiar... "Oh!"

Suddenly a girl became visible. She was sitting on top of the fountain. Her hair was pitch black and hung in waves down to her waist, she had eyes of pure purple with pitch black eyelashes and eyebrows and a pale face. She reminded me of the vampires, but it was contrasted by the fact that she had black wings with some streaks of white and silver in them calmly she put a sweatshirt on the top of them. Gracefully she jumped down and looked at me carefully as well.

"I know who you are," she told me suddenly. "I was in your town, remember? I met you, I was seven and you were six."

I shook my head, but didn't doubt that it had occurred. She continued, "it was in a graveyard, we didn't talk long. I was going to Chicago, remember? I told you about tha – that place..." Her voice trailed off and her eyes filled with tears. I remembered then, she had been a runaway. A runaway from a genetics laboratory in Christopher, she had gone to live in Chicago. I met her only that one time and she confided the secret in me because she caught me with a broken wrist that she wanted to heal.

"Don't tell me you don't remember?" she said, tears rolling down her cheeks, "because I want desperately to know that I'm not alone in my secret still."

"I remember, Rin," I told her, using her name so she'd believe me. "I just want to know how you got here so suddenly."

She looked around as if somebody were suddenly spying on us and then replied, "they dropped me here. I don't know why."

I was confused, "who did?" I asked.

"The lab people. You know how I told you that I ran off?" not waiting for a reply, she continued, "it was all a test. After two years of 'freedom' they took me back. They wanted to see how I'd react around people and then how I would adapt back to my normal life. And now it's happening again! Lily, you have got to help me!" Rin suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Watch it," came a voice from behind her.

Rin turned around and was face to face with Zero who was pointing his gun at her. "You don't smell like a human," he commented. "Get away from Lily-chan."

"Zero, it's okay," I told him calmly. "Zero, nothing happened. It's all okay."

That gun wouldn't affect her if he shot, right? It only killed vampires, right?

"Kiryuu, don't aim that thing at everyone of us that you see, will ya?" asked the smooth voice of Aidou as he approached.

He walked over to Rin and stood in front of her. Rin glanced at me, _who is this twerp?_ The thought rang through my head like one of my own thoughts, but I knew that it was from her. It was the look she gave me that told me it was her, and the fact that I knew who Aidou was.

_Hanabusa Aidou, he's a noble class vampire and apparently they all think that you're a vampire too! So stick with the cover!_ I thought back to her desperately hoping she had enough sense to stick to the cover they had unwittingly given her.

"Who might you be?" Aidou asked flirtatiously.

"I don't have to answer that do I?" Rin asked, "because I don't like telling my name to creepy strangers, like yourself."

The look on Aidou's face was priceless. He looked shocked, apparently he didn't like when people opposed him or made fun of him. I couldn't help but giggle a bit under my breath. Aidou glared at me, "don't do that!" he yelled at me. I stopped.

Kaname was by now approaching us. "I see that everyone has met the new girl," he said.

_New girl? Is that me?_ Rin asked me. I nodded.

It looked like this was Rin's new situation, getting along with vampires when she wasn't one. I felt bad for her having to be with a bunch of people who lived off blood and in darkness, but I wondered if her personality would have been any different after everything she had been through.

"Yes, this is Nasrin Gates. She just came from a boarding school in Chicago, Illinois, in America. Welcome her, and remember that American customs are different than the Japanese ones," Kaname told them. "Lily, go take Nasrin to the chairman. I want to talk with these two about skipping class."

"Yes, Kaname-senpai," I said then quickly got Rin out of there.

"Watch it, parasite," Zero warned Rin. We watched as he walked slowly away.

Rin looked at me with a worried, yet very surprised face. "Why is he..."

"I don't know," I replied before she finished.

That had always bothered me, not knowing. It seemed that Zero had a severe dislike against vampires and that there were never any exceptions. I knew nothing about his past, only that he had been trained in a vampire hunters family. Oh well, it was all about where you were raised.

When we reached the chairmans office, I realized that since it was now nearing midnight that he probably wouldn't be there, but then again... The door was open and I could see that he was indeed sitting at his desk, waiting.

"Hello, Lily-chan, I see you brought the new girl," he said. Enthusiastically he turned to Rin, "and what do you think of a peace between vampires and humans?"

Rin looked surprised. "I think it would -uhm- be interesting?" she asked more than answered.

Chairman Cross looked like he was going to cry, "here are your uniforms, take them and change, then go to class." As he said it he began to 'sob'.

I rolled my eyes and muttered, "let's go before he gets any more emotional."

Rin looked guilty and before she left she whispered, "I'm sorry that I caused such a scene."

I shook my head and then pointed the bathroom out to her. She went in to change and in a moment she reappeared. She turned around and asked, "do you see my wings?"

"Nope, the Night Class uniform seems to work miracles," I told her grinning.

We walked back down to where the school was, we didn't say much. Actually, we didn't say anything. At least not until we got there. When we got to the door that separated us from the Night Class, Rin went hysterical. She fell to her knees with her head in her hands, crying and mumbling some things in gibberish, others in English, and a couple in Japanese.

"Why would they send me here? In a school filled with vampires? Of all the places to go..." Rin was mumbling some phrases of illogic again, "what are they going to do when two years are up? Say that suddenly this isn't the right school for me? Why? Why do they do this to me? They might as well just... kill me at this point..."

She went on to cry more about what a failure she was and that her life was torture. "Rin," I said, when she didn't react I repeated it and shook her a little. She still didn't react. "Rin! Get a grip! You have to go in there!" I shouted at her.

She dried her eyes and looked like she suddenly was going to laugh, "you're right. And the good news is I have two years where I can't be controlled, and that's better than nothing. I guess."

With a happier countenance she turned and opened the door. I watched to make sure that she went in, then quickly left, the dim school gave me the creeps.

The rest of the night I thought about meeting Rin that day she thought she could be free. It had been the first day she had been let go, now it was the first day again and we met again. Did they know that Rin had told me their secrets? Did that put me ultimately in danger too? What if somehow our fates were entwined, it was either that or my father abusing me countered Rin's secret enough that they didn't need to kidnap me. Was being abused a good thing in this moment, or was the lab manipulating both Rin and me secretly? I shook my head. That was bogus, though now I did wonder though, why did Rin look so much like my mom?

* * *

Finally... I redid everything that I worked on for the past week in this chapter, that's why it took so long. Plus, I'm slightly disappointed at not making the bowling qualifications. Next year! Revenge! Revenge! Oh-who am I kidding...

I hope that my new character will be well liked, I thought I should have a main character in each class, plus I think the new one will put more entertainment in the story than Lily would.

Anyway, please review and tell me what you think. Reviews make me happy. Thank you to anyone who gives one.

Also-- I don't want to anger people so... I have no clue if Christopher (small town in South Illinois) has an evil genetics lab


	8. Shawn's Side

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. At this point that is Lily and Rin._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Eight: Shawn's Side

The wooden steps of the dilapidated farmhouse creaked under Shawn Moore's feet. He stood in front of the back door for a while thinking over what he was going to say, what he was going to do.

_Should I be doing this? This is dangerous, I don't know if I really want to know what happened to Lily yet..._ he thought, with more fear and anger he added to himself, _what if she's dead?_

Shawn had known Lily's secret. He had seen her with cruel cuts and large ugly bruises... he had watched her lie about how she got them. He remembered watching her face, seeing how she sometimes stumbled over the words, how she would laugh a little at her 'klutziness' and pretend they weren't as bad as what they were. Almost all of the town knew that her father liked to drink. He had since Lily's mom had died. Once two and two were put together, the answer was very simple. Her father hurt her.

Right now standing here, Shawn wanted to slap himself. He couldn't believe it had taken him this long to do this. It was because of her though. He didn't want her to be hurt worse than she already was. He didn't want her father to be angry at her over something he had done. He loved her and his concern could have betrayed him in the end.

But now she was gone. And nobody knew what had happened to her.

Maybe somebody kidnapped her, or she kidnapped herself. He glanced at the barn. He was pretty sure Kidd was there, and she wouldn't have gotten far without Kidd. She could be dead already, killed by her father or herself. That thought was the one that haunted him the most.

Frustration built inside of him and he quickly pulled the screen door open.

The first thing that he saw was glass all over the floor, along with empty beer bottles strewn around as if as an added decor. There was an old wooden round table just to the right of the doorway and plates had been stacked high in the sink on the other side. The kitchen was dim since the window above the sink had been covered with old, dusty curtains.

Shawn stepped in, avoiding the glass as he headed for the living room.

He didn't have to go in, because a drunken figure appeared before him momentarily. Alan Waters had short auburn colored hair similar to Lily's, but his eyes were a dark brown. In his hand he held a beer bottle still, Shawn glared at him. At the age of fifteen, Shawn was almost this man's height at 5'7'' and that gave him the advantage of being able to appear intimidating.

"What do you want, just walking in here like that?" the man slurred drunkenly, but Shawn didn't have a chance to answer as he began to yell angrily, "get out of my house!"

Shawn didn't comply. He had a reason to be there, he had to know what happened to Lily, he had to know if this man had killed her.

"You bastard, don't you dare order me around when you know that something happened to your own daughter," Shawn told him, almost in a growl due to holding his true anger in.

The man looked at him in surprise and some slight amusement. _Gruesome, _Shawn thought. _He won't take it seriously..._

"That stupid, and naïve little girl?" he asked. He grinned madly, "I'm glad she's gone, I was getting so sick of her getting in the way. Her and that stupid 'manga' of hers. That's all she ever did. And then once in a while she had to be punished for all the noise she made."

Shawn stared at him in anger and disbelief. 'For all the noise she made...' what noise? She was always so quiet, she would wince if a locker slammed, or if she scuffed her foot on the carpet. She wasn't noisy, not in the least.

"What do you mean you idiot? You killed her because she made a stair creak? You're her father and if she is still alive somewhere I want to know, and I want to know _now_!" Shawn yelled back in complete anger. He couldn't hold it in anymore. This man was horrible to his daughter, seeing only his pain and not hers. Something had to be done by somebody, and Shawn didn't mind being that person in the least.

"I didn't kill her, and I don't know where she is," her father said, "but I do know where she ain't and she ain't here in this house anymore."

He laughed cruelly and Shawn felt rage boil within him. _Hold it back, Shawn, we don't want a fight. I just want some answers,_ he told himself in an attempt to stop him from punching the man. It didn't work.

In the next instant, Shawn took a swing at him and hit him square in the jaw, he yelled, "if you don't go get some help, I'm going to turn you into the authorities for the murder of your daughter."

Alan Waters just stared at Shawn. "I didn't do it..." he mumbled, then turned and walked back into the living room.

Shawn was shocked, he had anticipated a fight would break out. The man was drunk, wasn't that how it worked? Didn't punches normally work in the opposite way, like make them overreact?

He turned and walked back outside, deep in thought. He wouldn't turn her dad into the authorities right then, Lily wouldn't want to. As a last minute thought he yelled back to the man in the house, "get some help, will ya? 'Cause your daughter really wants her dad back."

With that Shawn walked back to his house in town, even more perplexed then he had been when he started out, now he had to wonder, if the dad didn't know what happened to Lily and Kidd was still in the barn, then where on earth was she?

Meanwhile the father was sitting on the old dusty couch in the living room. He was in deep thought over what Shawn had said. "'Cause your daughter really wants her dad back" Finally he went to the kitchen found an old phone book, and forced himself to dial the number for a psychiatrist.

His daughter wanted her dad back, and now he realized that he wanted his daughter back as well. He had treated her like dirt since she was six years old, he had caused her two older siblings to not want to come home, but at the same time not want to leave her there.

As he waited for somebody to pick up on the other end of the line, he thought back through all the times he spent with his daughter. He had to think hard to remember them since there had been so few though and in the end all he could do was wince at what he'd done to hurt her. It seemed that it was a miracle when the secretary picked up the phone.

* * *

I know that this is short, but I thought it may be important to see Shawn's POV right now. And Lily might be bothering me right now.

Thank you for all the nice reviews!! Don't be shy about reviewing either, I don't mind criticism, I just don't like it when people put it in a mean way.

Also I know that I didn't develop the characters in this part very well. They're suppose to be that way at this point.


	9. What's going On?

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Nine: What's going on?

Rin walked into the classroom. Immediately the dark and powerful aura hit her like a brick. She had never felt this way, not even at the Lab. To her the aura felt so strong that it soon had begun to give her a headache, which she hoped would go away as she got use to living here.

"Class, this is Nasrin Gates," the teacher told them. He sounded annoyed and Rin knew that would work to her benefit eventually. He looked at Rin and told her, "sit anywhere."

Rin nodded and then went to sit in an empty space near the window. The aura wasn't so bad over here and Rin could look out and see the sky. _How long? _She wondered dismally, _How long will I have to be here?_ She didn't know what they, the scientists, were thinking. Something always blocked their thoughts from her and mind tricks didn't work on them, no matter how much she tried. She sighed and looked back from the window and faced the front only to see somebody turned around watching her. He had blond hair that lay down neatly on his head, and jade green eyes. He was smiling a little and was watching her intently.

"Is there something you want?" Rin asked a little sarcastically. She didn't want to get connected with people here. Well... maybe Lily, but that was because they both knew about the Lab and could talk about what to do about it.

"I wanted to introduce myself, since I'm the vice dorm leader," he answered back, he didn't sound smug... he sounded almost... nice. "I'm Takuma Ichijou."

He held his hand out and Rin took it and shook it. His aura felt warmer, kinder in a way. To be honest she had never felt something like that in her life either. So she felt two unknown auras today, and they were complete opposites. _Is he a vampire? _Rin asked herself in confusion. _He_ _had to be to get here in this school! Rin think clearly!_

"Is there something wrong? You look troubled," he asked. His voice sounded concerned, and even his eyes showed worry. Worry, was there such a thing? She was an experiment, the only things that _they_ ever worried about were if she didn't complete something to their standards. Not about her. Not about her feelings and her personal dilemma of being tortured every stinking day of her life.

"No, it's just that I've never been out of America before," she blushed. "I've never been this far from my parents before." _I didn't know that _they_ could track me in Japan._

He looked more relaxed as he heard this, "you'll be alright. Everybody misses them at first and then they're fine about not being around them. They even kind of like the freedom it gives you."

His words were meant to be comforting, but for Rin to hear that somebody thought she missed her _parents_... well... that only meant that her lying was working like a charm. "I bet that I'll be fine, my parents and I never really got along, that's why they would send me to Chicago. I wasn't born there, you know, I was born in Christopher." Rin paused, realizing how that sounded, then hastily corrected herself using absurd hand gestures, "that wasn't how it sounded! Christopher is a small town in South Illinois! Like way at the tip, not anywhere close to Chicago, but it's not that small, not like Sleepy Hollow or anything..."

Takuma interrupted after hearing the last statement, "Sleepy Hollow?"

"Yeah, it's way smaller then Christopher, you wouldn't even have heard about..." she stopped in mid-statement. Lily was from Sleepy Hollow._ Now they think that I know Lily! Oh dang!_

She looked back up to Takuma's startled green eyes. Apparently he knew where Lily was from, or was he surprised that Rin-who-was-from-a-small-town knew about a smaller town? _That makes no sense at all... of course it's the first!_

"Uhh, yeah! I _may_ have hopped a train when I was about seven and I _may _have been caught by the conductor outside the small town, and I _may_ have sprained my ankle jumping off suddenly and needed medical attention..." Rin rambled while she rolled her eyes skyward, avoiding his gaze.

"Oh. So you weren't there long?" he asked, she looked back now at his puzzled look. He was trying to decipher if she was admitting to knowing who Lily was or not. Right now he wasn't so sure, her defense sounded plausible enough... but could a _vampire_ sprain their ankle _that _easily. Well... then again she was jumping from a train...

Rin tried to get into his mind, to see if her story was convincing him. Just like in the Lab, his thoughts were blocked by something that reminded Rin like running into a concrete wall. She reached up and rubbed her head. _That hurt,_ Rin thought to herself,_ again!_

"Are you alright, Nasrin?" Takuma asked, deciding that he liked her and that her story made sense-to a certain point...

She tried to give a convincing smile, though she failed miserably, as she answered, "no, I'm fine." _I just hit a brick wall again, but I'll be fine..._

Takuma looked more worried. His brow furrowed and he looked more intently at her. "You don't look fine," he informed her seriously, "you look like you're in a lot of pain."

Rin blinked and noticed that everything was getting blurry, normally the pain would subside due to the darkness of her 'room' but here it only seemed to get worse. It was like being stabbed in the head with thousands of... _needles._ Rin sighed and tried to get the thought out of her head, this was not the time to let petty fears cause her to cry, not now! She just couldn't understand... it worked fine with Lily... why didn't it ever work on anybody else? _Probably because Lily's human and nobody else is..._

"You sure you're alright?" Takuma asked again.

"Yes, I'm fine," Rin answered this time with a bit of annoyance trickling into her voice. She sighed and forced herself to forget about the pain. Forgetting was good in this case, forgetting was _very_ good.

"Just tell me if anything is wrong," he told her kindly as he turned back to face the board. Sighing he glanced at his wrist watch. _Almost 4 a.m., _he thought, _only a few more minutes until the last bell rings._

Rin settled back in her seat. She was so tired... all she wanted to do was go to sleep... In the next instant she was asleep on her desk and then in the next instant the bell rang and she was on the floor.

"Ohh! And it's the worst day ever!" she exclaimed, she continued in a whisper to herself, "first with the last minute shots, then with the accidental fall into the fountain, then with my hysterical moment outside the door, then with the headaches, then falling onto the floor and humiliating myself... this day couldn't have gone worse if the Lab decided to show up..."

She soon noticed that a hand had been held out for her to take. She looked up to find that Takuma had offered his hand out for her to take. "Need some help?" he asked, grinning a little when she muttered something under her breath. "I guess I should have told how close we were to the bell," he laughed.

_His kindness is a joke,_ Rin thought, _he's probably just like the Lab. He'll just be another Luke, willing to let me go back to the place that I thought he was saving me from._

Hastily she stood up on her own and ran out of the classroom at top speed, which was pretty fast for her. By the time she had managed to find her way back to the fountain, so far the only place she knew how to reach, it had only been about five minutes. She looked into the clear water and looked at her face. _Is that really me?_ She wondered, _is that what I look like now? I look so much older..._

She laughed a little at herself, of course she looked older! Just because she hadn't seen her reflection since she was nine didn't mean she wasn't older! All the features were the same though... purple eyes, black hair, flawless face...

_But do I think differently?_ Rin asked herself, _Do I take things different ways? Am I wiser?_

She didn't know the answers. None of them. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and then heard a soft voice say, "did I hurt your feelings? If I did, I'm sorry."

Rin didn't look up. She didn't have to in order to know who it was. He continued on when she didn't answer, "I'll take you to your room. You'll feel better after you sleep."

He took her arm and formally led her to the dorm. He chatted away about the room or something, but Rin didn't pay attention until she heard the words 'blood-tablets'. "What!" she practically screamed. _How like them to make me deal with _that_!_ She thought in anger and frustration. _I cannot do that!_

"Don't tell me that you never drank a blood tablet, I have never bitten a human _in my life_," he told her with dead on seriousness.

What was the wise thing to do? Say 'no, I never had a blood tablet' or 'oh-a blood tablet. I misheard you!'? Even Rin, who was not always the brightest crayon in the Crayola box, knew what to answer.

"Oh-sorry, I think I misheard you," Rin blushed.

"Oh well," Takuma said, "here's your room. I hope you'll like it here."

Rin glanced past him and noticed that the room had two large beds, one of which was made up with purple colored linens; beyond them was a window with the same color curtains; there were two doors which she assumed at that point were a bathroom and a closet. On the ground in front of the bed she was surprised to see two large suitcases. _Did I bring those?_ Rin wondered to herself. She assumed not.

"Tell me if you need anything," Takuma told her as he started walking down the hall.

Rin looked at his retreating form and whispered, "thanks." As she turned back to her room, even she couldn't hear his quiet, "you're welcome."

Rin stepped into the room. Looking around she noticed that the room was large and that there seemed to be a lot of empty space. On the bedside table there was a lamp, an alarm clock, and the pack of blood tablets that Takuma had mentioned. _Ick, _Rin thought grimacing to herself, _I wonder... would they catch me _not_ taking these? Never know if you don't try..._ She took them and then quickly had put them into the drawer so she could, hopefully, forget about them. She went back to the suitcases, surely they were empty. The Lab probably sent them for show or something. She opened them.

Inside were clothes, some books, and toiletries. She couldn't believe it. They could act like _parents_. So cute...

Digging everything out she dumped it onto the spare bed. At the bottom was a picture frame and in it was a picture of all the scientists standing in a row smiling. Rin couldn't help it, she screamed. Right afterward, she forced herself to get a grip, but it was too late. In the doorway stood two boys, Hanabusa Aidou and Akatsuki Kain.

"And what is so frightening now?" Aidou asked. He was clearly annoyed at being called a creeper before.

"Nothing, I felt like screaming," Rin answered, "so I did. Leave." Rin turned back to her unpacking, stuffing the photo under her mattress quickly.

They didn't listen to her. "Felt like it, huh?" Aidou asked as he approached her. He tried to put his arm around her, but Rin smacked his arm away.

"Watch it," she growled, "leave, I'm trying to get settled."

He once again ignored her, but before he could do anything else, a voice called from down the hall, "Aidou, Kain! Get back to your room!"

_Thank the Lord for Takuma... _

Rin took the photo back out. And then took the picture out of the frame. On the back a note read: _We hope that you have a good time in school. We have sent all the necessary items so that you can fit in. Make sure that nobody knows of our existence, and that you follow the rules, including ours: stay where you are the _whole time_. Enjoy your break. The Lab_

_Oh, well wasn't that nice of them? Send me a goodbye, good luck card. That totally will start my 'break' off well!_ Rin huffed and then stuffed the photo and frame into the drawer with all the other stuff she wanted to ignore.

It took her about an hour to unpack and decide on most of the items. Some things went into the closet, some into a dresser within the room, others into the bathroom, and still others went into the Drawer of the Unknown.

While she was putting the suitcases away into the closet, something fell out. She grabbed it and looked at it when she walked back out to the room. _Luke!_ Rin thought when she saw it.

It was a picture of her old guardian, and though he had sold her back to the Lab, she still had fond memories of him. She took the frame back out and stuck his picture into it. She placed it where the blood tablets use to be.

_Will you help me again? Or will you leave me again? What one, it's your choice. _Rin kept thinking this as she changed into a pair of pajamas and then as she crawled into bed. _I have two years, most don't make it this far. I'm lucky, yet I still feel like I should get something better. Am I selfish? Or am I more human than I thought?_

It was true that nobody was as old as Rin was. Most of the experiments failed when they were about ten, but Rin had always been able to keep a steady head onto things. She could do things that nobody could do, and she was good at it. She had often wondered what would happen to her when she reached adulthood. Would they let her go or would they terminate her? She wasn't sure and that was why it was a great thing that Lily was here. It was time to put her plan into action.

* * *

A day after I said it was going to be updated... Oh well...

I hope that people liked this chapter, I decided that I was going to skip main character (Lily and Rin) about every other chapter. Tell me if you like a Takuma/OC idea, because I think that I might put Rin with him...

Please review!


	10. Discovery

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. They are as follows: Lily, Rin, Shawn, Alan (dad), Mandi (sister) _

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Ten: Discovery

It had been a week at least since Rin came to study at Cross Academy. She made things a whole lot more lively, and often got in the way. In _my _way, at least. It wasn't that I hated her, it was only that she was getting _both_ of us into trouble. Zero was claiming that I was fraternizing with the enemy, Kaname claimed that I was preventing the class from studying, and the Chairman was concerned that I wasn't doing my job as well as I could. And then we get into Yori worrying over me not getting enough sleep. Yes, and Rin was the cause of it all. Her and the Lab.

Rin apparently had this brilliant plan to get rid of them. Apparently. She refused to tell me about any of it. Now that I knew Rin I was almost positive that no real 'plan' existed, she only said that so that she could convince herself that there was a way to stop what was going on there. When she went out and met me during the night she would barely mention the Lab, she would only complain once in a while about how smartly the Lab could piece together her broken life, how they could connect this with her school life at the ages of seven and eight. But they had to have left a gap somewhere, they had to!

I dropped my head onto the desk and a loud 'thump' echoed in the once quiet room.

"Lily Waters?" the teacher called. "Would you like to answer the question on the board?"

I glanced up, thank the Lord that it was only Literature class. I read the question, _the most dynamic character in _the Crucible_?_ _What? We're reading _the Crucible_? I didn't know that... What does dynamic mean anyway?_

"Uhmm... I don't know... Abigail Williams?" I fumbled. I faintly remembered hearing her name being mentioned.

Everyone looked at me oddly, even the teacher. "No," he replied, "Sayori Wakaba, would you like to help your friend?"

I glanced over at Yori who sighed, glanced at her notes and then answered, "John Hale."

"Good job," the teacher said with a small smile. He went on to ask another question just as the bell rang.

_Thank the Lord for the bell..._ The next class was only study hall in the library, so there would be time to relax and talk, maybe pull out a copy of _the Crucible_ and get caught up before the teacher realized that I knew _nothing_.

"You look down today, Lily," Yori commented, "is something wrong?"

I forced a smile and then answered almost happily, "nope! Everything is fine!"

"Liar," Yuuki muttered, "you have even refused to come be with Zero, me, and 'dad' for experimental dinners. Even though I understand why..."

"Is there one tonight?" I asked, when Yuuki nodded slowly, I told her, "I'll be there."

She looked enthusiastic as she practically shouted, "yea! Now I will have somebody besides Zero to talk to!"

I guessed that she was annoyed with him, too. He seemed to be in a tizzy every time that I saw him now, even down at the stables. I wonder what the matter was, but didn't really dwell on it. Whatever it was he'd tell me if it was important. And in turn I would tell Yuuki or vice versa.

I walked into the literature section of the library and silently looked for the play by Arthur Miller. I went to the next aisle after finding that it wasn't in the aisle that I'd originally thought it to be in. Right in front of the place where it would be stood a person who was obviously out of dress code. The person wore a completely black hoodie that was baggy and pulled up to cover most of their face and they wore baggy dark jeans. It was impossible for me to tell if they were a boy or a girl, but I had a good idea as to who it was.

"Rin? You realize that you don't have to be here during the day, don't you?" I asked with no surprise at all lining my voice. But I couldn't keep that slight annoyance out, didn't she know that I was going to be in trouble if I didn't read that book?

She turned to me and then stepped back so that I could grab the book. I did and she began talking as I silently glanced over some of the major parts. "I know, but I need to talk with you," she said.

"You realize I have school right now. See this is how it works, you go to school at night while I watch, and then because I couldn't be educated at night with you because I had a _job_, I get to go to school during the day," I informed her with a little sarcasm laced in everywhere.

"Do you know who Takuma Ichijou is?" she asked after ignoring everything I tried to point out.

I sighed. This topic again... and with Rin... goodness, she was _in_ the Night Class... "Yes," I answered. It was impossible to _not _know about him, half of the school was in love with him.

"First, prove that you know who he is, because it is obvious that you are not crazy over him like... others," she practically was ordering me.

"Fine, blond hair, jade green eyes, taller than me-like everyone else, kind, happy attitude all the time, says 'hi' to me once in a while," I rambled off a couple of different answers to suit what she wanted to hear. I glanced at her, she looked convinced enough. "What is it, Rin?" I asked, "it's not like he's bothering you, is he?"

She gave me a weird look, "no! Him? No way! I just needed to talk to you about something involving him." she paused then timidly asked, "what do you think of him? I would decide for myself, but I haven't really been out in the world with others, and I'm not sure how real people are supposed to act."

I looked at her weirdly in turn, she came here, risking Kaname's wrath, to talk to me about her _boy_ troubles? Goodness, she must have a pretty serious crush. I answered a little timidly since I didn't normally show my feelings on such matters, "I like him, I guess. He's nice enough, for a vampire. That's what you need to remember, he's a vampire, you _are not_."

Rin looked at the ground as if she were ashamed of something. In a moment she looked back up and said with a note of disdain, "I know, I guess that's my problem. I don't even know what I am, so I try to fit in wherever I can."

"I'm sorry, Rin, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm really tired, so I really am not thinking straight," I apologized. I hadn't meant to hurt her feelings, goodness, what kind of a friend was I? My friend had a problem, even if it was on a topic that I personally disliked didn't mean that it wasn't important! "Are you crushing?"

She nodded enthusiastically, "yes! And I'm sorry for annoying you to death with it, but I thought that since you are a level headed person your opinion would be the best to get. So, can you help me?"

I thought about it. Boy problems... never had to deal with them before. Unless you counted Shawn-the-incredibly-annoying-yet-kind-crush-obsessed-boy back in Illinois. I sighed, "I'll try."

"Yea!" Rin exclaimed and hugged me tightly, just as one Zero Kiryuu came looking for _the Crucible_ in the aisle. _Caught!_ I thought impulsively. _Ahh... Dang it... I was about to get advice!_ _Oh! And there was something else..._ Rin thought back in depression.

"What are you doing here?" Zero asked in his usual annoyed tone, "just leave, parasite, got it?"

Rin nodded and then quickly had left at her inhuman speed. I thought that everything was normal until I heard a crash and then Rin's loud, "I'm okay!" Looking out of the aisle I saw that she had run into the librarian when she was pushing a cart full of books she was attempting to shelve. I sighed. What a klutz...

"Let me know if she's bothering you," Zero told me. He turned to leave, but I grabbed his sleeve. I wanted to know what was wrong with him, my curiosity had gotten to me.

"Zero, is there something wrong with you these days?" I asked. He looked back at me in discomfort and... hunger? Before he could answer the bell rang and he had quickly run to go gather up his things and go to the next class.

I sighed, shrugged, and then went to get my books as well. If he didn't want to tell me it was okay. I could live without knowing, maybe it was better that way.

I walked to my last class and then sat next to Yuuki and Yori, it was Friday at last. Tomorrow was Saturday. A whole day of nothing... at last... Sighing, I promptly fell asleep on my desk and slept through the whole history lesson.

**Time lapse**

"It's about time that we were all together again!" Chairman Cross exclaimed happily when he saw that I had decided to come to his 'special family Friday dinner'. "I have tons of new, delicious recipes to try! You're going to love them!"

I looked at him. He sure looked weird wearing a pink apron and those oven mitts, and his hair, though up in a ponytail, spilled over his face and glasses. He looked nothing like the vampires, so than why was he so interested in helping them? Was it personal redemption or something? I bet not. His attitude didn't display somebody who would need anybody's forgiveness, well maybe if he really annoyed somebody. I glanced at Zero, maybe he needed Zero's forgiveness.

"So who's ready to try it?" he asked. None of us responded, he set the plate he was holding onto the table and turned away going into his depression again as he said to himself, "I worked so hard... and no reaction... again..."

We all silently, and while exchanging expressions of rolling our eyes, took some of the food and then began to eat. Upon seeing us eating his meal, Chairman Cross happily went back into the kitchen to bring out the rest of his meal. We all rolled our eyes again.

"You know, despite him being melodramatic," Yuuki was saying, "he does know how to cook."

As I ate some noodles happily, I nodded. "I guess..." Zero muttered. Yuuki and I glared at him.

"Where are your manners, Zero?" Yuuki exclaimed at him.

Zero didn't answer, instead he stood and quickly walked out of the room, Yuuki sighed and followed him out. Not wanting to be alone, I followed after a while.

They were a ways down the hall, and I walked quickly and quietly to catch up. They went down a staircase, not even noticing me. Looking down I was surprised at what I saw. Zero was biting Yuuki. Zero was a vampire.

I muffled my own scream and turned and almost ran into Kaname himself. Gently he moved me out of his way. "Takuma is down the hall, why don't you go stay with him for a while? He won't bite you, I promise." I was about to disagree when I looked at his face. It read "don't you dare argue or I might hurt you for stalling me". I just nodded and headed to where Takuma was waiting. He gently took my arm and guided me to the Chairmans living room. He forced me to sit on the couch beside him.

"I'm sorry that you had to see that," he said. "Are you frightened?"

That was a good question. Was I frightened? I guess, I was at least shocked. However, I had been through so many things. This seemed so innocent compared to them. I shook my head a little. "A little shocked, but not frightened."

He seemed a little surprised, "well," he continued, "since Kaname told me to look after you for a while, since Zero is having a difficult time controlling himself tonight, why don't we play a game or something?"

A game? What kind of game? What about hide-and-go-seek, I was good at that one. "A game?" I asked, reminding myself of a child who'd had to live in the holocaust. The only difference was that I knew _what_ a game _was_. I just didn't know how to _play_ any games.

"Don't you play games still?" he asked in surprise, "you're only fourteen. You must play games still! Even every once in a while at, like, sleepovers?"

"Once again, I grew up in a small town," I told him, "we don't really have that kind of lifestyle. The most fun I had was when I jumped out of a window in the hay loft and slid down the roof, which ended up not being so fun because I broke my arm."

I glanced at Takuma's face, he looked like he wanted to laugh at my story, but was waiting to make sure I wasn't just making it up. I grimaced. He chuckled. His green eyes glowed a little when he smiled and he bowed his head a little when he seemed to think about something a little more. When he recovered he asked, "would you like to learn a card game?"

I wondered for a bit. This was my only chance, I might as well enjoy it, "sure."

For the next ten minutes he patiently coached me through speed, which I turned out to be pretty good at. After a while of playing, he began to ask me questions, "so what was it like to live in a small town? I always wanted to see the way normal people would live."

I grinned a little, still focusing on my cards I answered, "like I said, it was a little boring. And a lot of hard work."

He grimaced a little at the words 'hard-work'. "What was?" he asked. He placed down a king on a queen that I'd wanted to place a jack on. _Dang._ He grinned a little in amusement.

"Everything," I answered. He gave me a look that told me to elaborate. I rolled my eyes and told him, "mainly the chores. My mom died when I was six, and though I had two older siblings all the chores would suddenly have to be done by me." _Because my dad was drunk and would beat my older sister and my older brother was away in a college in New York._ I added to myself.

"What about your father? Wouldn't he help?" he asked sounding slightly annoyed on the last words because I managed to beat him to the placement of a card.

_Would my dad help? That man who stood apart at the funeral? Was that my _father_? He must be dead, too... he died with my mother..._ "My father was very busy, even before my mom's death," I explained. _Though he would never be too busy for us._ "He was a horse trainer. And all he cared about was the work. And us too, but everything was about his work." _But he cared about us too. He use to like to teach me tricks with Kidd._

"You sound a little sad about that," Takuma pressed a little on the topic, "why?"

I didn't answer right away, I took the moment to place all five of the cards in my hand onto the two piles and then collected five more. _Finally, a really good play._ I answered slowly, having come up with a good convincing reason to be sad, "in the end his job killed him. He died when I was ten. One day he was training a horse on the road, because he had a fear of loud noises, and he never came back. We, me and my older sister Mandi my older brother was away at college, went out looking at around eleven and found the horse coming back riderless. A little further away we found that our dad had died when he fell out of the saddle and hit his head on the pavement." _I faintly remember that something similar had happened to me when I was four and Kidd threw me. Except that I hit a fence and I hadn't died. _

I heard Takuma's sad 'oh-I'm sorry for bringing up that memory'.

"That's not all either, soon afterward Mandi and I were separated when we were put in foster homes," I finished. _That gives me an excuse for not having any of my siblings now._

I placed another card down on the pile and reached for another. Nothing.

"Lily-chan, you just won," Takuma informed me gently. "Congrats. You should go to bed. It's getting late now."

At the reminder, I glanced at a clock on the wall. 9_:35_. It wasn't late enough for me to want to go to bed yet. I shook my head. "I'm fine," I told him, timidly I asked, "can we play again?"

He nodded, seeming eager to play. I grinned to myself maybe this time he'd let me win fairly. It didn't really take a genius to be able to tell that he went way slower than he could have. As long as the genius knew that he was a vampire.

He continued the questionnaire, "so, did anything happen at all between those time periods? You left some time gaps in between your losses."

I couldn't hide my sudden surprise. He wasn't buying my story's apparently. I wanted suddenly to say, 'I'm suddenly really sleepy. I want to go to bed', but that would _really_ make it look like I had made up all of those story's.

"I was really busy in between all of that," I told him, "I couldn't hang out with friends or anything." _My dad's situation wouldn't allow it. _

Takuma gave me a hard glance, and I grimaced a bit. "Really. I'm telling the truth. What do I have to gain out of lying?" I asked him.

He shook his head, he replied, "I guess nothing. I was just wondering if your life was really that uneventful. Didn't you ever meet anyone new?"

Did he suspect that Rin and I had met? _Goodness,_ I thought, _Rin must have let something slip._ _And she did add that last phrase to her thought... 'and there was something else'..._ "Now that you mention it," I replied looking at the ceiling as I told him this 'new' piece of information coming to my head, "we did have somebody new come when I was six. It was a couple of days after my mom died, so it gets lost a little, but the whole town got in a ruckus because a girl came after she supposedly hopped a train. I don't remember much about her though." _Especially not anything about the Lab. And because at the time, I was also starting to hop trains in order to go to Chicago._

"Oh, so then it was true," Takuma whispered, seemingly to himself.

_So she did let something slip._ "What's true, Ichijou-senpai?" I asked seemingly innocent.

"Oh, nothing that concerns you, Lily-chan, but you might have just sanctioned somebody. Oh-and call me Takuma when we're alone, I don't like formalities," he told me gently.

"Al-alright, Ichi-" I broke off when he gave a sigh, I corrected myself, "Takuma-san." _Why does he want me to treat him this way? Is he giving me a special privilege in exchange for something? What does he want? I wish he would just tell me! I have no clue what is going on here! Why is he asking so many questions?_

His voice brought me back to the table, "you look troubled, I didn't know that an American would be so fixated on honorifics. Call me whatever you like, I don't mind. I would just prefer that you call me Takuma. It was my given name, after all."

I nodded. Still timid I asked, "is there some reason why you're asking all of these questions?" I looked at the playing field, I hadn't been able to play _any_ cards so far. I wanted to hide my gaze from his. This was making me nervous now.

He didn't answer. I glanced at the clock, about ten minutes had passed now and still he hadn't answered, and I hadn't played a single card. I placed the cards on the table and muttered, "it's not nice to cheat."

He looked surprised. "What?"

"You second-handed. I use to do it when I was really young. It was the only thing I'd do with cards," I explained.

"I thought that you didn't know how to play cards," he reminded me. He looked annoyed. "So which one is it?"

The way he was now looking at me made me nervous. _Why did I say _anything_? I could have just left it at 'I just know you did, because I haven't played a single card while you are going as slow as heck and winning._ I stumbled in my answer, "it's both. My parents refused to teach me because they thought that I would start cheating, so I played _with_ cards, but never any card _games_."

"How did you know that I had seen the cards?" he asked. I sighed. I hated when people decided to play twenty questions with something they knew that I already knew.

"You saw them when you were shuffling," I muttered and stood up. I headed to the dining room where I had left my bag.

I needed something else to do now. Playing cards wasn't very fun if the opposing player set you up so that you could win one game, but then set you up to lose slowly on the next game. All so that they could get some meager information out of you. I felt so violated, every single traumatic thing that I had ever gone through was laid out on the table for everyone to see now. _But those things weren't real, _I reminded myself, _they were only lies that you made up to protect yourself. What? You want to have them know the truth? That you ran from your father because you found that he was mean and heartless towards you without your mother? Then they'll realize my dad's alive and that the Chairman had no business adopting me._

I sighed, what to do.

**No point of view**

Takuma watched as Lily walked out of the room. As he collected the cards he noticed something on the coffee table in the room. When he went over closer to it, leaving the cards in a mess on the table, because he was truly lazy in the moment and curious as to what seemed to be out of place on Chairman Cross's coffee table, he saw that it was a sketchbook with a large white water lily on the cover.

_I didn't know that the Chairman could draw,_ he thought to himself. _Wonder if he's any good at it. Probably not, he's kind of a loony, he wouldn't be able to stay patient for that long._

However, because of his boredom, and the fact that he was waiting for Lily to either calm down or end up falling asleep on herself, he opened it anyway.

_This isn't the Chairman's. Judging by that dedication, this would belong to Lily-chan,_ he realized. He fought with himself over what to do. Lily was in the other room, she was upset at him for something, probably prying into her past, and she would probably only be more upset if she found him looking at this. But she was so secretive, this sketchbook would probably let him get a glimpse at what she'd seen. _But it's hers, Takuma, and it's rude to look at her drawings without her knowing,_ one side of him argued against it. The other side fought for it with, _You will never get another chance at this. And Kaname only wants to know if Rin is dangerous. Seeing if Lily-chan knew her or not won't hurt anything, just do it quickly._

With that he opened it up. The first picture was of, what he guessed was her family. _Pretty good for a six year old, _he commented to himself after reading the date. He turned a page, hospital scene, funeral... _Why is that man over there? That can't be her father... but he looks like him._ He shrugged it off and kept looking. The next picture was of herself. Typical, cute little girl. On the next two pages were pictures of her brother and sister. The brother had dark brown like a mixture between the father and the mother and hazel colored eyes, while the sister contrasted all of that with pitch black hair and extremely dark colored eyes, if he hadn't known that Lily had been distressed when she was separated from her, he would have said her to be evil.

_They all look very familiar though..._ he thought to himself. He shook the feeling off, _I don't know them, they're strangers._

He continued and on the next page found exactly what he hadn't been looking for. The reason for Lily's secretive attitude. _She's not protecting Rin! She's protecting herself! I should tell the Chairman and Kaname!_

"What are you doing?" an angry voice demanded.

He turned around, Lily stood in the doorway. "I saw that my sketchbook was gone so I figured I left it in here. I want it back." Suddenly Lily seemed almost dangerous, what was with her now? Didn't she realize that it was too late? That he knew? Suddenly she seemed to realize, and her dangerous air left a much more breakable one evident in the room. Her brightly colored jade green eyes began to mist up, but she held the tears of helplessness back. "You already know, don't you?" she asked in a strangely calm voice. It sounded like one a murderer would use after they meditated on killing somebody. It was frightening hearing it come from Lily, but she wasn't the type to murder over information, and Takuma knew this. He nodded.

"Lily-chan..." Takuma started to say something, but looked at the floor. _What am I going to say? I shouldn't have looked at her sketchbook, it was wrong of me._ He tried again, "I'm sorry, Lily-chan. I'm going to go tell, Kaname and the Chairman. You don't have to come, if you don't want to."

Suddenly she was beside him. "You can't!" she told him wide-eyed. He looked at her bright green eyes. They were so beautiful, innocent, not the kind of eyes you would think an abused child would have.

"Why not?" he asked sternly. _If she's going to deny that she's in a bad situation, then I really will have to tell everybody about it._

She looked at the ground sullenly, "because they-the police-will make me go back."

He was confused, _make her go back? What's she trying to do? Play me for an idiot?_ "Huh? Explain your meaning," he asked calmly.

"Minors can't press charges, it'll be overlooked," she explained, "and my dad will be furious."

Now he understood better. She was scared that her father would be worse. He wouldn't want to be the cause of that, and she seemed happy here. Sighing, he gave her sketchbook back, "here, I won't tell Kaname or the Chairman." he paused long enough for her to be reassured that he meant it, he continued, "but-you have to tell me the truth. About everything." He waited for a moment and watched as Lily nodded, "good. Tomorrow night in the library."

Lily watched as he walked away. By now it was well into the night and Lily was too nervous to even sleep. She clutched her sketchbook to her chest. To think that her greatest possession was going to get her into this mess. Now she really did need her mothers advice...

* * *

Oh... and somebody found out... I hope that people are actually reading this... I feel lonely talking to myself now.

I'm thinking of only updating if I get a review now, because in all honesty, I don't trust my own writing and I rely on people to tell me when I made a mistake. So, sorry, but unless that can happen, I'm going to stop. *cries* I want to find out what happens! Next chapter is in Lily's POV, too.


	11. In the Library on a Saturday

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. That is: Lily, Shawn, Rin, Alan (dad), and Mandi (sister)_

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Eleven: In the Library on a Saturday

The next day started off normally. I woke up around at around 5:30 a.m., rushed around getting ready and then at around seven, I walked out of my room to go and grab breakfast with Yuuki and Yori. Thoughts about the night before filled my head, but I tried to push them aside as I went to meet my friends.

As usual, pushing my thoughts away proved to be unsuccessful. _Somebody knows,_ I thought, _I went for almost nine years, and then I slipped up this _one _time._ I blamed this school for the slip up. I had become too comfortable with this lifestyle. Being almost carefree was going to get me caught by somebody higher up than Takuma sooner or later. Probably the Chairman or Kaname, who could both be extremely angry over the fact that I lied to them. Well, not so much Kaname. I mean, he took me away to begin with...

I shook my head. These were not the thoughts to think.

"Lily! We're over here!" I heard Yuuki's voice before I saw her and Yori already with trays walking over to our usual window spot. I waved in return and then when to get my own food.

I glanced around for Zero, but he appeared not to be here this morning. _That's right,_ I remembered, _he bit Yuuki. Zero's a vampire. _What should I do around Yuuki? Pretend that I hadn't seen anything, or should I tell her that I knew? In any case, I couldn't ask with Yori, or any others around.

I sat down, and asked casually, "where's Zero today, Yuuki?"

She gave one of her large, yet somehow very fake smiles. She put a hand behind her head as she answered, "I don't know."

Yori rolled her eyes. "Yeah, she really doesn't know," Yori muttered.

Before any of us could do anything further I realized that our class representative was striding towards our table. Yuuki looked like she was going to duck, but it was too late.

"Yuuki and Lily-chan!" he exclaimed in that usual 'no patience' voice of his, "it's getting close to the first dance of the year, and you both are currently failing every class you have! If I can't dance with Ruka-chan, it will be you twos fault! Therefore, all day today you both will be working with your math and Literature teachers." He began to walk off as Yuuki began to groan. Even though he was obviously no longer talking to us he continued complaining, "this always happens to me! It always has to happen to _me_!"

I was mostly amused, and for once, I felt truly sorry for Ruka. I couldn't handle such a... _thing_. Who knew that she could actually have a reason to be annoyed! Yuuki was taking it much more seriously. "Classes all day, again?" she groaned.

"It will help you both," Yori pointed out. "Maybe this will give you extra credit or something."

Yuuki seemed to perk up, but I ruined that effectively when I said, "I highly doubt that." Yuuki went back to hysterics.

And that was just about how she was until we reached the classroom. Then the boredom started up. We both couldn't hide behind our classmates on the questions either. And sooner or later the only good thing that the classes were doing was distracting my mind from my meeting tonight with Takuma.

In the middle of an extremely difficult algebraic equation my brain had an information overload. I dropped my head onto my desk and groaned, "I don't get it."

The two teachers exchanged glances, then glanced at the clock and realized that they had been quizzing us unmercifully for the past so-so hours, and we still weren't understanding any of what they taught.

"You two can leave," our math teacher told us in a groan. He obviously didn't like it when students, especially the chairman's adopted children, failed. "Just make sure you both get a good tutor."

In a split second we were both out of there, hopefully not to return until test day on Monday. I glanced at my watch. _Almost five. _I thought to myself. _Goodness those teachers sure took their time trying to get us to understand their lessons._ I couldn't help but feel bad for taking up so much of their time and then not understanding _anything_. It was their fault though, they really thought that I could have gotten it in these now dire circumstances. It was too close to the exam day now to be packing your students heads full of junk that they would never ever in a million years need!

"How were classes?" Yori asked as Yuuki and I sat down at our table with our dinners.

We both groaned and rolled our eyes. "Neither of us learned anything. And Lily-chan almost had an aneurysm, that's why they let us leave so soon. But now we both need a tutor," Yuuki informed her.

Yori smiled slightly, "I can help you both study. Unlike some of _us_, I took notes." In emphasis she held up a neat, organized binder labeled 'notes'.

"Oh, I wish that I could," I said sarcastically, "but I have to meet somebody tonight in the library." I looked at their shocked expressions. "What?" I asked after a while.

Yuuki looked almost scared for me, "who are you meeting at night time?" She was trying not to shake or to ask too tensely for Yori's sake.

"Oh-Ichijou-senpai," I whispered. I wasn't really sure if he would want me to be telling anybody, but I had to tell Yuuki. Somebody had to know what happened to me if I went... missing. Though I doubted that Takuma would do that to me.

I still had enough sense to keep my voice down. I really did _not_ need to have all of his fangirls all over me. I saw how Aidou treated Yuuki and how they reacted, luckily Kain was nice enough to steer him away from me so that I wouldn't be victimized as well. I glanced at my watch again. _Almost six, I should probably go back to my room and get ready to go,_ I thought.

"See you two later," I told them, "I have to go get ready."

"Have fun on your date," Yori told me smugly.

"It is _not _a date," I muttered, then quickly turned and walked away. _If Rin found out about this... Oh she'd be so mad!_

**Time lapse**

I was now walking down the school halls, again. I was getting tired of this school. I really was. At least there would be the dance to look forward to. Maybe, provided I passed the exams. It was around nine at night now, but I wasn't sure if Takuma would have arrived yet or not. Just in case I had brought along my math book, the subject I was failing the worst in. Not that I wasn't failing pretty bad in the other classes. I also carried my sketchbook with me, in the case that Takuma might just want to look at that so that I could study more. If he had a heart, he would let me pass my class.

Because it was the night time, I wasn't required to wear my uniform when I went to the library. Instead I was dressed casually in an old high school T-shirt, covered up by a sweatshirt that I had brought with me from my hometown, and a regular pair of jeans and tennis shoes. I carried my prefect badge in the rare case that I got stopped, though I doubted if any teachers would dare stop me when I was going to the library seemingly to study. I winced thinking of how bad I was doing.

Slowly I pulled open the heavy wooden door to the library. As I looked in I saw that Takuma was already there, sitting on top of one of the tables near the back dressed in a casual looking blue shirt with a white blouse like one under it and white pants. _Goodness, _I thought, _he sure does belong here. Everything that these people wear is nice! And besides my school uniform, all I have are jeans and T-shirts! _I blushed a little.

"Yo, Lily-chan!" he called to me while waving. That's when I noticed something else. He was completely surrounded by manga. I walked over to him slowly, taking in this scene. _A vampire enjoys reading manga? _I wondered to myself. _What type of vampire enjoys things that, to them, must seem like they're making fun of vampires? _I didn't know the answers to these questions, but if that was what he liked... Besides, I had no qualm against it, I had lost my only manga at the fountain. And even before that I had desperately needed another.

"You brought a math book?" he asked in surprise. "Do you enjoy doing equations outside of school? If I had known I would have brought one of my textbooks..." I realized that he was teasing me, but it wasn't making me laugh. I didn't want to even _think _about math anymore today. Obviously, he had never failed in his lifetime.

I groaned as I dropped into a chair. "Don't tease me about it. I don't even want to hear the word math again," I muttered, "not after today."

He nodded, pretending to understand when he probably didn't. "Are your friends doing last minute cramming for the exams on Monday?" he asked. I guess that he was trying to be nice, but it only made today seem that much worse. I _could_ have reviewed with my friends, my teachers just didn't trust me not to goof off.

"No," I answered more moodily, "the teachers are." I dropped my head onto the table, it hitting this time with only a muffled 'thump' due to the multitude of manga layering the table.

"Oh, you didn't get all the supplementary class times in?" he asked it. He obviously didn't get my dilemma.

"Just forget it," I replied, "I'll do fine." I paused, "maybe." I looked up at him and asked the one ultimate stupid question that had been bugging me all day, "if I'm getting a forty-six in a class what do I need to get in order to pass?"

Now he looked shocked, his eyes were wide and his mouth nearly fell open as he asked, "what class is this in?"

I held up my math textbook in example. "Among others," I added.

For a while he just looked at me, as if he was waiting for me to grin and say, 'gotcha!', except it never came. I was a hundred percent serious.

"Alright," he began, "sorry to say this, Lily-chan, but you're going to have to get near perfect marks if you're going to pass." He saw my face fall. He sighed, "I guess that our conversation can continue while I help you."

"Thank you, I just don't want to face the wrath of our class representative, apparently he blames Yuuki and me for dragging the class down," I told him. He didn't look surprised as I added, "with good reason."

He hopped off of the table then and sat in the chair next to me. I put my book on the table and he turned randomly to the very section that I hated the most. When I tried to casually turn to a different page, he knocked my hand down. It hadn't hurt, but I winced anyway.

"Sorry, Lily-chan, I forgot momentarily about what you went through," he apologized.

"It's alright," I responded quickly, "I just hate this section."

He grinned, "all the more reason to do it first!" He pulled out a blank piece of paper and a pencil. He wrote down a problem, then passed it to me. "Work it out the way you normally would," he instructed.

"But I don't know where to begin..." I protested.

He responded quickly, "do it the way you would have on the exam day if you hadn't studied it."

I groaned again over it, but this time did as I was told. I scribbled down some of the numbers in a way I had seen the teacher do in class on the day we had learned this. I could tell that beside me, Takuma was chuckling a little over it, but I ignored it and just finished the problem the way I normally would have. I passed it back to him as I defended myself, "I told you I didn't understand it." I blushed when he read over it all again and again, all the while laughing at my absurd answer.

"Explain to me how you got this answer," he said to me after a while.

"I don't know. By putting down numbers," I replied while I shrugged. "Don't laugh at it!" I told him frustrated when he decided he had to laugh over it again. "I told you I didn't understand it!"

He stopped, and then began pointing to things. "Alright, you don't do this first," he told me, he drew a line through it and then wrote something else down instead, "this is what you do." Then he wrote down something that I had done near to the end, "then _this _comes next, followed by the step you did first." He wrote it down and then wrote down what must have been the answer and circled it. "This is your answer."

"But that's easy!" I said in disbelief. He grinned at me. "When our teacher showed us how to do it, he made it seem really complicated."

Takuma laughed a little at me, "just because it's not complicated doesn't mean it isn't right. Besides, I took this class when I was way younger then you, so take my advice."

So I did. Most of the night he retaught me things that the teacher had made extremely complicated in terms and steps that were easy to follow. Then the questioning began again, but only every once in a while. Once I was able to do the problems on my own, he took my sketchbook that had been sitting in my lap and began to leaf through it.

After a while he asked, "who is this?" I paused in my work and timidly glanced over. I had been hoping that he would skip the picture of Rin, since we didn't want to show that we had known each other, but when I looked over I was relieved to see a picture of Shawn.

"Shawn Moore, he's a boy in my class," I told him, then I added, "not this one. My old one."

"Your lifetime crush?" Takuma teased me. He grinned over at me. I rolled my eyes.

"Not really. He has a crush on _me_," I replied. _A white lie. _I thought, _He does have a crush on me, and I don't have a crush that big on him. _

Takuma continued looking through the sketchbook, and I went back to work on the problem. It didn't seem right. "Uh, am I doing this right?" I asked.

He looked over at the paper, then he leaned closer to me. He took the pencil out of my hand and then wrote something and crossed something else out. "You missed this step, again," he explained. I shook a little, but didn't reply. Though he was not facing me as he leaned over, he was still in close proximity. "Lily-chan?" he asked. He sat up and then looked at me. "Lily-chan, are you alright?"

I nodded, "headache." I reached up and rubbed my head in emphasis. "And I'm tired," I added.

"Oh," Takuma replied, he glanced at his watch, "it is a little-"

BAM!!

There was suddenly a loud noise that caused Takuma to be interrupted. We both glanced over and saw Rin lying on the top of one of the tables. Above her I noticed that a vent had broken open. I went closer, with Takuma coming along behind me at a slower pace, he probably wanted to see if we recognized each other. Once I was closer I heard her mutter, "I knew I shouldn't have played with that bolt."

"Are you alright, Nasrin-san?" I asked like this was one of the only times I would have seen her.

She lifted her head up a little and tried to sit up, but because she was near the edge of the table, she only ended up falling off. I was going to go help her, but Takuma's hand on my shoulder stopped me.

"I can handle this, Lily-chan," he said a little coldly. He looked suddenly serious. "Go find Kain or Aidou to take you back to your regular dorm. They like to study in one of the classrooms during exam week."

"Takuma-san," I protested, "I can handle going back on my own." He turned to me with a look that said, 'just do as I say now'.

I nodded, then went back to the table to grab my math text book and sketchbook. I didn't know if Takuma would be upset if I took it back now or not, but Yori, Yuuki, and maybe even Zero would probably notice that it was missing.

I walked out into the hallway. Only then did I realize how creepy the school was after the curfew. Well, I had realized it before, but never like this. Today was a Saturday, even for them, which meant that if students wanted to study they would just about have free reign of the school, provided that they followed the rules. _I better find somebody I recognize fast, so that they can take me back to my room!_ I walked a little faster towards the room that Aidou and Kain normally studied in. Timidly, fearing that they would not be there, I turned the knob and then opened the door. I opened it about a centimeter and peeked in to see if they were there or not. Suddenly the door was thrust open by somebody on the other side and I gave a small cry of surprise. I looked up to see Aidou holding the door open. The class room was almost completely dark, except for a few candles that were lit, its darkness gave a frightening property to Aidou, who looked even more dark and intimidating due to the fact that he was wearing something darker than his uniform, and I couldn't even say any sort of greeting, nor could I state the reason why I had come. In fact I was so startled, I accidentally let my sketchbook drop from under my arm. It fell open to a picture of me sitting with my hands covering my ears, as I myself sat screaming with my eyes clenched shut. I tried to grab it, but Aidou was quicker.

"Give that back!" I yelled at him. I reached for it, but he held it up higher so that I couldn't reach it. It didn't take much. "That's mine, and it's important. Give it to me!" I repeated.

He grinned and continued looking at it. "Just let me look at the pictures you drew, Lily-chan," he replied calmly, "is that too much to ask?"

Kain grabbed it out of his hands and handed it back to me. "Here you go," he said in a bored tone, "now explain why you're here. I thought that the chairman gave you the weekend off."

"And the same for us," Aidou added, he was suddenly serious. He narrowed his eyes a little at me.

I quickly started to explain, it was good that this conversation stay on topic, "I was in the library studying and didn't realize it was after curfew until Ichijou-senpai found me in there. He told me to find somebody who would take me back."

They both looked surprised. They must have been wondering why Takuma wouldn't have just taken me back himself. I went through different things to use as excuses, but in the end didn't say anything. They were now too busy speaking to each other to probably even remember that I was there. I guessed that they just assumed I would find somebody else to take me back. They turned to go back to their desks.

"Fine, I'll go by myself. But if something happens to me, it'll be your fault," I sighed as I turned back to go into the main hallway. I felt somebody grab my arm, and turned back to see that Aidou had taken my arm.

"Don't do that," he told me, "I don't want to face Kaname-sama's wrath if something happened." He pulled me into the classroom, and then shut the door. I glanced around, they seemed to be the only students in the room.

I wondered why they had taken me in here and then closed the door. Weren't they suppose to escort me back to my dorm, _then_ get on with what they had been doing? I wanted to protest now more than ever, saying I was going to be fine going by myself, but I was too timid now to do that.

"Lily, just sit down somewhere and wait for us to finish with our work. It'll only take a moment," Kain told me. He then turned back to whatever they were working on. I took a seat a little away from them, but not too far that they couldn't just call to me when they were finished.

I settled down and pulled out my sketchbook. I began on a drawing, but didn't really pay much attention to it. I was mainly thinking about Rin falling from the vent, so that must have been why it appeared on my paper. Well, some of it did. In the middle of the drawing I began to feel just plain exhausted and couldn't focus on it anymore. I closed my eyes, meaning to only for a moment, but then they stayed closed. Then it came. It was the dark, evil laugh that had come from my father when he was drunk. I wanted to open my eyes and have it be over, but due to the exhaustion I had run into, when I did so, all I could see was him coming closer with a baseball bat. In shock, I fell out of the desk, landing with a 'thud' onto the floor. I thanked God for this harsh fall, due to the fact that it ended my nightmare abruptly in its path towards the beginning. Unfortunately, my sketchbook went flying and any loose paper went out with it, and then my math book fell onto my head. I rubbed where it had hit. This had definitely been the _worst_ day ever!

I was soon aware that Aidou and Kain were standing over me. Neither offered a hand to help me up, but I didn't care, I wasn't wanting to get up yet anyway. I was tired, and I was sure that I was going to fall again. I noticed that Aidou had began picking up some of the papers that I had dropped, and Kain had put my math textbook, the evil culprit of my new headache, onto the desk.

"Be more careful, Lily," Kain warned, "do we have to remind you that this place has vampires in it?"

I was confused. I had only fallen out of the desk, what harm did that do? Then I realized that I had scraped one of my wrists during the fall. What a great time not to have my bag! Aidou brought the scattered papers back and placed them on top of the math textbook. He took off his tie and, after he grabbed my hurt wrist, tied it around tightly.

"We'll go now," he said. Kain took my arm and helped me to stand. I grabbed my stuff and made no argument with them. I just followed.

**No point of view**

For no reason Lily had fallen out of her desk, scraping her wrist on a rough edge causing it to bleed. What would have been a very small matter anywhere else, was a large one in Cross Academy. When they had gone over to the source, Aidou quickly had distracted himself by going over and collecting her scattered papers. Kain had gotten over it much quicker, but didn't trust himself to reach down and help her up. It was easy to tell that Lily didn't understand why they were acting so weird until Kain pointed out that her wrist was in fact bleeding. They soon after decided to take Lily back to her room before anything worse could happen.

Lily seemed much more awake now, she was leading the way to her room quickly and easily. Behind her, her two escorts talked quietly.

"I took one of her papers," Aidou told his cousin.

"Did you?" he asked. His tone was his normal calm, and bored tone. But really he was interested.

In evidence, Aidou held the paper out to Kain so that he could see. It was another drawing. Kain was confused.

"It's just a drawing," he informed Aidou. "It's not even finished all the way." The drawing was only a rough sketch right now. No color had been added in yet, though there was a key saying what _would_ be colored in.

Aidou turned the paper over revealing notes that Lily had labeled 'what's going on'. "This isn't normal for a little girl to think," he explained. "Akatsuki, the thoughts going through her mind must be really sadistic if this is what she wants to draw."

Kain took the paper and read a little of what she wrote. _I hate to agree with Hanabusa this time, but... he might actually be right this time. _Kain thought, _I like her. I thought she was the average human when I met her. But this would say that she had a sadistic mind. That's just... what if she's not human?_

He glanced back at Aidou, who seemed to be thinking the same thing. "How will we find out?" Kain asked.

"Just keep watching her," Aidou replied with a sigh, "what else will we be allowed to do? We can't easily tell Kaname-sama what we think because he's always worried about Yuuki-chan."

"Can only put so much on his plate," Kain muttered.

Aidou nodded. As they paused for a moment in their talking, they heard Lily's voice.

"I'm back at the dorm. Thanks," she told them. They just watched her. She opened the door and went inside and was gone.

For a while they watched where she had been standing. Then slowly they crept to the only room with the light on.

Inside, Lily was getting ready for bed. She changed into a nightgown, brushed her hair and teeth, then sat down to draw for a while. She couldn't go back to sleep with that _thing_ lurking in her nightmares. She would rather have a nightmare about being mauled by a bear, or trampled by her horse, or stalked by a rabid raccoon. She flipped through the loose papers, they no longer were organized in the pockets, if they had even been before, and looked for her recent creation. It wasn't there. _And I worked all that time on the color key! I even had the notes on the back! I was all set to go! Great... Aidou must have not picked that one up... _

She continued to think about the missing drawing. What if he had, and decided to keep it? That wouldn't be good... Takuma knowing her secret put her at risk, but he had promised to keep it a secret as long as she was here and safe. But, if these people were trying to prove that something had happened... they would either get it wrong, or would immediately tell Kaname. They _were_ his 'right hand men'.

_Great, _Lily yelled at herself, _once again, your prized possession gets you into trouble._

She went back to the bed. She was too tired to turn the light off, she didn't want to anyway. Maybe the light would convince whatever demon she had to leave her. She fell into bed and closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep. There was no way for her to know that her sleep was watched by the two boys who thought that she was a demon herself.

* * *

Alright, I finally figured out a good way to put this chapter! (if anybody's interested in Rin's side-she will be narrating the next chapter)

Thanks for the reviews that I got after the last update! (I'm still being serious about my threat too--*still crying*)

There is a poll on my profile. It may, or may not depending on my mood, be important for my next fanfiction.

I hope that this chapter will also be well liked. If anyone has any questions or anything, just ask. I might answer.


	12. To What Extent Have I Lived?

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. That is: Lily, Rin, Shawn, Alan (dad), and Mandi (sister)_

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Twelve: To What Extent Have I Lived?

**Rin's point of view **_(written in first person)_

I had only meant to play with the bolts and the grate looking down onto the library a little bit. I hadn't expected the whole thing to collapse! But it had... and now I was lying on the hard library floor. And it couldn't have been one of those modern ones with carpeting, no-this school was prestigious-it _had_ to be hardwood. I had followed Lily and Takuma to the library with the intent of knowing what they were both doing there. I kept telling myself that I was protecting Lily from the vampires, but that really wasn't true. I was protecting Takuma so that I was certain he wouldn't fall for her and her flirting.

Hmm... Alright, she wasn't flirting, but I wanted Takuma to like me! To like me, like me! And recently he and I had spent a lot of time together. Especially during class, where we had to. But I also would talk to him in the meeting area of the dorm along with Shiki and Rima. They were kind of boring... but they were nice enough. The only thing was, I could never stay long because of the thing with the blood tablets. They had to continue thinking that I was taking them in my room where I liked to do my work. Alone.

The thing that bothered me most about having to go to this school was that my classmates all went to school during the night, which meant that I did as well. I hardly ever got to see the sun anymore, I was always exhausted and just fell asleep. The only time where I saw the sun was when it was twilight and we were swapping to the school. Then I was right back into the darkness. Sometimes during the night, during class when I decided that I needed a break, I would go and find Lily. I could tell that she was annoyed that I bothered her when she would have much rather gotten her rounds finished so that she could go to bed, but I really needed somebody who was like me to talk to. Then I talked to her in the library, confiding in her my feelings for Takuma and then she goes and ends up getting a date with the guy who is supposed to be _mine_. And I thought we were friends...

But all of this information didn't solve my current situation. There would now be questions, like, 'why were you in the vent?' and 'why didn't you come in the front door?' and 'didn't you know that the school is open on Saturday for people like you who understands little or nothing?'. I sighed audibly. _Great, what kind of nutcase am I?_

"Rin?" I heard Takuma's voice ask. It wasn't like his normal, soft voice, this one was a little bit cold. "What were you doing in the vent?"

I must have looked like a deer in the headlights, because his face broke into a small grin. "There was a bolt that was loose in the vent," I explained slowly, "I was trying to fix it, but it didn't like me so it went the wrong way."

"How did you know that it was loose in the first place?" he asked me. His face had started to look more calm.

"It's one of my powers. I can feel when vents are breaking," I said while trying not to laugh at my own stupidity. His face was surprised at my excuse, but then he looked like he was going to laugh. "Yeah, my parents thought that it was funny, too. They never really understood it."

He cracked up. _Was it that funny?_ I thought not. "I was trying to make sure that you had no ill intentions for Lily-chan," he told me. "You didn't, did you?"

I looked at him in surprise. _Hurt Lily? Why would I do that? Well... I might have if they like kissed or something, but they weren't dating! They were studying! Or were they..._ "No, I didn't. I have no use for her whatsoever. She's just a human," I replied. _Hopefully one that can help me in the future with my plan for the dismantling of the Lab. _

"So are you going back to the dorms now? Or are you going to stay and fix the vent?" he asked me, bringing up my failure again. On purpose. I glared at him.

"I'll go back," I muttered. I turned and walked out of the library and through the school, blushing a hundred different shades of red.

_Well, Rinny. Wasn't this just the wonderful Saturday evening? _I thought to myself sarcastically, _I could have gone flying if I had known that everything was going to be like this all night long!_

I almost took myself up on my offer, except that I saw Aidou and Kain lurking around the Day Class Dorms. I sighed, "guess my nighttime flying session is going to have to wait. I never liked these guys."

I crept over to them and tried to hear what they were talking about. I was too far away. _Guess I'll have to watch what they do then, _I thought in disappointment. I was too far away, and I couldn't get any closer because I was at the very edge of where the trees were and if I went any further I'd be caught in seconds. _I'll have to stop them if they attack any of those girls._

They kept glancing at one of the windows in the dorm house. The light was still on, but they appeared to be waiting for it to go off. Finally, they got impatient and began climbing on one of the vines to get to it. Well, when I say they, I mean Aidou. I moved out of my hiding place and walked silently to Kain who didn't notice me because he was watching Aidou.

"What's Aidou doing up there?" I asked in a curious tone of voice. Kain was startled and turned around quickly.

"Nasrin, what are you doing here?" he asked. I looked at him. He was surprised? They were the ones sneaking around suspiciously.

"I could ask you the same question," I responded. "I was taking a walk. Now it's your turn."

At that moment Aidou lost his footing and fell. He landed with a thud onto the ground and even I grimaced for him. He quickly got to his feet, pretending that it hadn't happened. "Hanabusa, we have a visitor," Kain informed him in that annoying monotone of his.

Aidou turned and saw me. "You didn't see that," he told me. He looked embarrassed.

I grinned, "I did though." He looked horrified.

For a while none of us spoke, we all stood there. The silence was awkward, but none of us seemed to have a reason to be there. "Who's room is that?" I finally asked. They turned to face me.

"That's Lily's room," Kain admitted. He glanced at Aidou who looked like he was going to have a conniption fit. "I shouldn't have told her?" Aidou glared at him, but then looked down at the ground. He shook his head a little. Then he looked at me.

"There are other creatures besides vampires, you must know, Nasrin," he told me. I grimaced. _Yeah, I know. I'm one in fact, but you can't know that. In fact, you will _never_ know that._ I nodded in reply and he continued, "well, we think that Lily may be one of them." I grinned. "What?" he asked. His annoyance flew up. As always.

"You know nothing about Lily," I told him, "she's completely human. If you dare hurt her, I swear that you will be sorry." Before I had any reaction time, he had thrown me against a wall. I winced when I felt something break towards where my back was. _Yow! That's a wing! Hollow bones break too easily! _

"Don't threaten us like that. We don't know what they allow people like you to get away with in America, but here you do not disrespect people who are older than you," for a moment I didn't see him as Aidou, I saw him as one of the scientists in the Lab. Always telling me what I _couldn't _do. Then he slapped me. Hard. He let me go, and I took off running at top speed towards the forest.

**Momentarily to Kain and Aidou **_(third person)_

"Did you have to do that?" Kain asked his cousin, "she's only trying to enforce the Chairman's peace treaty."

Aidou was watching where Nasrin had taken off too. She was fast. Hopefully a fast learner too. "It had to be done," Aidou replied. "She can't just get away with showing me disrespect." He turned back to look at Lily's window. _Why would a vampire defend somebody like Lily?_

"I think that she's asleep, Hanabusa," Kain told him, "nobody can go without sleep for that long. Try to climb the vines again, to make sure. Then turn the light off, and then we can leave. She won't bother anybody when she's asleep."

Aidou sighed but took the idea. He managed to get into her room, and then looked around. _Pretty empty,_ he thought. He noticed that her sketchbook lay open still on her small table, as if she'd given up on searching for something. _Great, I probably took one of her recent creations._ He shrugged. It was her fault for being clumsy. He looked onto the other side where he stood. It was her bed. She was asleep, like Kain had said. Her hair waved around her face, but it looked like she was crying. He walked closer to see, but he stopped short when he heard some muttered words in English.

"Don't leave... I don't want to be alone with him... sister... Mandi..." her voice was small and she begged as if she were just talking to herself. _What is she talking about? Oh-well it doesn't matter. She's asleep. I'll turn off the light and then leave._

He crossed over and turned the light off and then silently left her room.

"She's out," he told his cousin. "Let's figure out her drawing tonight. We'll have to give it back to her soon. Apparently it was new and she's looking for it."

His cousin nodded his agreement and they went back to the dorms.

**Back to Rin **_(first person)_

I got to an empty field and then stopped suddenly. I hadn't paid attention to where I was going, all I had cared about was getting somewhere that was lonely and big enough to stretch my wings out. Something that I wasn't looking forward to. I shrugged my sweatshirt off leaving only my tanktop. My wing had a throbbing that was intensifying as the moments wore on.

_How am I going to do this? _I wondered, _do I just stretch it? _I tried it as I thought it. "Yow!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I paused, but then continued. _I have to do this! _Finally I heard the bone snap back into place. A duller pain came soon thereafter. _I am going to murder Aidou. I swear._

I looked at the sky. Innocently the stars sparkled down on me. "What did I ever do to You?" I asked the sky. "All I had to live for was flying. I don't want that to be taken from me also." I looked at my broken wing. "How can it heal, Dear Lord?" I asked. _How will it heal when I have to hide it all day long? _"Oh, Dear Lord, don't take this away from me..." I sat on the ground and cried silently.

_Don't cry, Rinny... _I begged myself, _you're stronger than this. Don't break down now! Breaking down in the darkness of the Lab is one thing, but not when freedom may be just around the corner!_ I raised my head then. The pain in my wing was going away, maybe I had unconsciously healed it. I flexed it a little. It stung, but it didn't give me a racking pain. I sighed. _If that's as good as it's going to get..._ I raised my head back to the sky and whispered, "thanks."

I stood and, carrying my sweatshirt in one hand, walked back toward the school. I hadn't realized how far I ran. It was well over a mile from the school. _Wish I could fly still tonight, _I thought in depression. As I got closer I pulled my sweatshirt back on. _Maybe next week..._

When I got back to the dorm, I decided to go in the back way, as the sun was just about to rise and I figured that a lot of the students were now heading back in. Quietly I went to my room, closing the door behind me.

"What are you?" a voice asked darkly. I jumped and looked up in surprise. Kaname stood in my room.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked in confusion. _What am I? Well, see, about seven years ago I was a human, then I was an Experiment, and now I'm a vampire. I guess that makes me an Other since I can clearly _not_ fit in anywhere else._

"What are you?" he asked slowly. He ground it out between his teeth. I shrunk back. _He scares me... he always has..._

"I-I'm like all the rest. I'm a vampire..." I stammered. He glared at me. He held up the pack of blood tablets.

"Take a blood tablet then," he told me as he tossed me the packet. I caught it easily.

I looked at it for a moment. I took one out. The packet was half empty due to my back-up plan of dumping a couple down the sink every night. _I'm glad that I thought of that... _Maybe they weren't as bad as I thought. Then I remembered how the vampires reacted to these things. If they didn't like it, then how could a human or an Other possibly like it? I was about to pop it into my mouth when Kaname spoke up again. "With water." I went to the bathroom and took a cup and then poured some water into it. I placed the blood tablet into it. _This won't kill me... this won't kill me... _I kept thinking. Kaname stood behind me, waiting. I pretended to take a sip. "All of it..." he growled. _I'm fifteen. I've been misused my whole life. If you even think of killing me..._ my thoughts halted when another person came into my room.

We both glanced behind us. It was Takuma. "Kaname, what are you making Rin do?" he spoke softly and respectfully, but at the same time he showed that he wanted to know.

He glanced over at me. "Kaname, you realize that she's crying, right?" he continued. _I'm not crying, _I thought. I reached up and realized that my cheeks were wet. _I am crying._

"I was making sure that she was taking her blood tablets," Kaname replied innocently, "she never takes them in front of us." He glanced at me and then in a concerned voice whispered, "sorry." Then he left. Both Takuma and I watched him leave.

Takuma looked back at me after a while. "Sorry about that, Rin," Takuma whispered. He gave me a gentle smile as he closed his eyes and put a hand behind his head. "Usually Kaname isn't so harsh." He reopened his eyes. He continued in a more serious sounding voice, "he has a point though. You ought to take the tablets with us. We can all suffer together."

"Ha, ha," I laughed sarcastically. I swirled the red liquid around in my glass. _That was close. I hope that it never gets that close again._ I wanted to pour the drink down the drain right now, but Takuma would see, and that would only prove Kaname's point. "Aren't you going to leave?" I looked at the counter top, not at him.

"Not unless you're okay," he replied. I looked back at him. I was startled, he's a vampire, right? I doubted that most humans would ask if I was alright after an experience like that.

"I'm fine, now," I told him. I gave a small smile. "Thanks for that. I don't like to be coerced to do things."

"Good," he replied. I watched him. He'd leave now, but he looked down at the floor, as if he were trying to decide something. "Tomorrow is the day before the exams," he informed me casually. He went on more nervously, "I don't mean to-uhm-judge your grades or anything, but do you-uhm-want to study with me in the library?" _Is this his way of asking for a date?_ I wondered. _Better say 'yes', not just because I like him, but because I need to pass my tests! It's definitely _not _because I have a crush on him!_ _Fine, that's the main reason..._

"Sure," I told him and blushed a little, "how did you know that I needed to study? You didn't look at my transcript, did you?" I asked the last part seriously, and it was proven by his slight wince. I groaned a little and put a hand up on my forehead. "Great..." I muttered.

"Your grades aren't that bad, besides, studying won't be so bad. I have my ways to make it more fun," he told me. "See you tomorrow, Rin." He waved to me happily.

When he was gone and the door was closed behind him, I couldn't stop a broad grin from flitting across my face. I felt so happy in that moment that I forgot that I was holding a glass filled with artificial blood and accidentally took a sip. _Oh, goodness... that's awful..._ I gagged and spit it out into the sink. _Note to self: do not drink blood tablets..._ I poured the rest of the glass down the drain soon afterward.

A date with Takuma. Great. He probably didn't consider it a date, but _I _was going to. It just filled my heart with a little bit more joy. I jumped a little in the air as I went back to my bedroom and got ready for bed. I forgot about my hurt wing and wrapped them both around me in a giant self-hug. "Rin, stop fan-girling," a voice came from the window. I looked up it was Lily.

"Sorry," I apologized, "but Takuma just made me one very happy girl!" I said as I grinned again. Lily looked pretty serious though.

I watched her. "I came here again because I thought that maybe you would want to know that Takuma knows my secret," she explained. "He's seen my sketchbook, I don't know if he's trying to figure out your secret or not."

I was a little more serious and concerned now. "Kaname came and threatened me tonight," I told her. "I guess our secrets won't be safe for long now."

She nodded her agreement. "We should jump into the plan now," she told me. I nodded. _What was the plan again? _

When I looked up, she was gone. _I had something to tell her... but I don't remember what it was... oh well, it must not be important!_ _And I need some sleep, I can't look like a wreck on my date! _I sang a little song in my head. Then did a little dance in my room and promptly tripped over my bed. _I was tired anyway..._

Still smiling, I crawled under the covers and left the curtains open. The sky is so beautiful today...

* * *

Finally, finished another chapter... I hope it lives up to everybody's expectations... (I don't even know if it lived up to mine!) The next chapter will be from both Lily and Rin. (half and half-- and they will begin to talk about their plan.)

Review, please! Tell me what you think! (seriously, I'm half asleep typing this...) *looks around confused then falls asleep again* (poll is on my profile; still want a review before I continue)

**_Sakura-Cherryblossoms9: _**thank you for your review, it really encouraged me to continue. Unfortunately, we won't see much of Shawn for a while... his role is pretty small (so far-he's going to come back in later). He only helped to build the change in her father.


	13. The Non Existent Plan

__

Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. That is: Lily Waters, Nasrin Gates, Luke Gates (former guardian),  
Mandi Waters (sister), _Alan Waters (dad), and Shawn Moore (obsessed crush)_

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Thirteen: The (Non-Existent) Plan

**Rin's point of view **_(told in first person)_

It was time. Time for the one miraculous thing in my life. The one thing that I valued and longed for the most. The one thing that could return me to one-hundred percent. The thing that made me different from everyone else. It was time to fly.

I sharpened my long talon like fingers on the 'fangs' that had ridges along the sides and then in turn preened my feathers carefully. It was a long process getting ready for flight. But after so many days of not doing it, I wasn't taking any unnecessary risks. Trust me, after one time of forgetting about the preening, you never forgot it again. I was dressed in an olive green tanktop and a pair of slate gray colored jeans. This outfit would sound weird for a pilot who wanted to fly where I was, but for me, with a higher body temperature this was normal.

I finished after about fifteen minutes and then as I ran out the door, I grabbed a gray colored sweatshirt. I didn't need to get caught right now.

I began heading toward the clearing the clearing that I had previously selected. This was closer to the Academy, so I had to be more careful as I approached it. As I got there I began to lose my whole focus. I no longer took any precautions, I just daydreamed as I walked.

_How did I learn to fly? _I wondered as I walked. It was Luke, I realized now, who had taught me how to fly. Patient coaching had helped me to love the thing in my life that I had hated in the Lab. And then in the Lab, when I returned, I had returned to hating it. Now I loved it. I seemed to go through this cycle over and over again.

But was the experiments that I hated there? No, it wasn't. It was the darkness.

The darkness of our 'rooms' was enough to make many of the other children crazy. Sometimes the darkness could make you wish that they would take you out to be experimented on, it was that dark and desolate. The rooms were soundproofed and you were in there all alone. But you would never know if you were alone. They never told us, only I had been able to figure out how to tell when hours, days and months had gone by. Only I had been able to figure out when I was truly alone. I could feel my surroundings with my mind. This might have been one of the reasons that I was alive today. I had adapted to my situation and now the talent had stayed on.

Thinking of the darkness made me get shivers that crept up my spine. I shook the feeling off reminding myself that I wasn't there right now.

The trees casted long, eerie shadows all across the depths of the forest. They made it appear that something was going to jump out at you, sometimes I hesitated when going further in because my imagination got the better of me. At one point I thought that I had seen a shadow move, but then when I looked over to where I had thought that I had seen it, it was gone. Then, when I felt that I had gotten lost, I arrived in the moon lit clearing.

The clearing was large and had a flat surface that would be perfect for a clean take off and landing. Of course, I would have preferred a mountain as a take off area, but I couldn't get everything in life. That was beside the point though. The clearing would also be distinguishable from the air due to the size. I just hoped that I would land well. I didn't want to go back to the Academy with lots of scrapes. That would be a difficult situation to get out of, no matter how fast my wounds might heal.

I took my sweatshirt and then stretched my midnight black wings to their full fourteen foot span. This felt so good. I just had to stand like this with the nice breeze billowing around me for a moment. I closed my eyes and felt the wind rushing past me. It tossed my hair back over my shoulders and ruffled my feathers a little, but it wasn't so strong that they remained that way for long. I began to run with the wind and then... I took off.

**Lily's point of view **_(told in first person)_

I went to the dance under the pretense of working as a guardian. The lights were bright and the atmosphere was cheery. All of the girls were happily attempting to get the Night Class boys to dance with them. I glanced around for the person that I was looking for. Rin.

We had both agreed to meet and discuss our plans during the dance. Except there was only one problem: she wasn't here! Well, this was a waste of time...

I turned around and started to head back to the door so that I could leave._ Maybe she is in the dorm... _I went outside quickly and headed to the dorm. Rin should be there if she wasn't in the ballroom.

I had never been to the Moon Dorm before, so when I walked in the front door I was flabbergasted. The place was like a mansion not a dorm! Those kids were really spoiled if they got this at school. I couldn't even imagine what they got at home now! I began to go up the stairs. Rin must be in her room... now I only had to figure out which one was hers...

I began to open doors at random. As I went down one of the hallways towards the back, I heard voices behind one of the doors. "Are you sure that she's a bad person, Hanabusa? She's really nice and I don't understand why you think that she could hurt anyone," Kain's voice was saying. I heard Aidou reply, "but look at this. I found a record saying that she was caught hopping a train to Chicago." Kain's voice once again defended the girl they were talking about, "lots of small town kids hop trains. They get bored with the same old life style." _Go Kain._ I thought. I totally knew what he was talking about. But Aidou in return said in a sarcastic voice, "when they're eight?"

Wait a moment. They're talking about a girl... who lives in a small town... who hopped a train and got caught when she was eight? That sounded like me! Oh no! They were getting way too close! I turned around to run out. It would be a very bad thing to get caught by them!

"Did you hear something?" Aidou asked. _Oh, no! _I gasped. I glanced around, there was no where to hide. I ran to another door and thrust it open and quickly stepped in. As soon as the door was closed I realized that it was a closet. _Great, I might as well give myself up. I don't want to be caught in here. That would make it so obvious that I listened into their conversation! _I opened the door and stepped out. I glanced around the hall and realized that nobody was in it besides me.

I walked quickly, trying to get to the exit without anyone noticing me. However, just as I was passing Kain and Aidou's room, the door opened. _Caught!_ I glanced up at them, a small blush forming on my cheeks.

Kain reached out and pulled me in as Aidou closed the door. "What are you doing in here?" Kain asked.

"You dragged me in," I muttered. Well, they had.

Kain rolled his eyes. "Not in our room! Why are you in the dorm?" he asked again, being more specific.

They both looked annoyed. I didn't blame them, obviously they suspected me of something and I had come in just in that instant. That didn't really help my case any, I could bet. They weren't dressed in their uniforms, a sign that showed that, like me and Rin, they had not expected to go to the dance. Instead Aidou was dressed in a blue dress shirt with a tie and a pair of dark khaki pants obviously everything that he dressed in was business casual, and Kain wore a black dress shirt that like his uniform was left open with a pair of dark khaki's like his cousin.

"I'm a guardian," I reminded them. "I was just checking on the dorm during the dance." I shrugged, they both proceeded to glare at me. They weren't buying it. Well, neither would I. It wasn't very convincing. "Don't... look at me that way," I murmured nervously. I looked down at the ground to avoid their looks.

"We know that you heard," Aidou informed me. "You thought that you could run away after you realized that we had begun to figure you out, but you can't."

He took a step closer to me. I would have retreated right now, but Kain was still holding my arm tightly. Then Aidou seemed to lose it. He began to act violently, reminding me of my fathers sudden mood swings. I gasped and struggled to get out of Kain's grip. He wouldn't let go.

"Let me go," I said under my breath, "I don't know what you're talking about. I just want to finish my job and go to bed."

Aidou's eyes seemed to flash as he turned to glare at me. "Yes, you do. And I have some questions, so now that you're here I can get some firm answers," he told me.

_I won't tell you anything, you idiot! It's bad enough that Takuma knows, it would be even worse if you knew! You will go right to Kaname, and I will be going back to Illinois and then I will get killed! _I wanted to tell them all of this, but I kept my mouth shut. Better to say nothing when people were angry. "Fine, just ask civilly," I told him.

Kain walked me over to a couch that was in their room and made me sit. Aidou sat across from me on the coffee table while Kain sat next to me.

"Why would a young girl want to hop a train?" he asked.

Well, that was a pathetic start. He wasn't very good at interrogation, I mean he could have begun with something better than that! I laughed a little bit as I answered, "that's what you know about me? That I got caught train hopping when I was eight? Everyone gets caught sometime, I got caught young. So what. I don't think that I got caught after that." I gasped realizing that those last words probably did me in. I shouldn't have told him that I hadn't learned the lesson of being taken home in a cop car, which I had directed to a different house on a street nowhere near mine.

"Well, that wasn't the only thing," Aidou continued. "On your permanent record it says that you gave the police officer directions to a house that wasn't yours so that your parents wouldn't even know! Tell me why you would do that!" He was threatening me again. I shook a little.

"Why would I?" I asked in return, "my mom had died two years before. I didn't want to make my dad upset. And it was during winter break, I knew that nobody would be home where I took the cop, and why should I be bothered with more chores if I could help it?"

_Even if I would have gotten more anyway... _I had to try to train the same amount of horses that my father had, but due to Mandi leaving me two years later, I never could and in the end I stuck an out of business message on our website and called all of the owners so that they would come to get their horses. It felt awful. I watched all the owners give me these confused looks when they saw that I was saying good-bye to the horses without my father. Then how they looked at the bruises that lined my arms as I laughed everything off. I crossed my arms across my chest as I mumbled in English, "I couldn't do it all... even I can't work miracles..." In the end all I had was Kidd.

I was surprised that I wasn't really crying yet. This was stressful for me. I didn't feel comfortable with these two, and I had to find Rin. I glanced back up at them.

"I'm not finished yet," Aidou continued.

I interrupted, "I haven't done anything wrong, Aidou, I hopped a train. Most small town kids get bored and hang out by the tracks, or try to get to Chicago." I stood up. Kain had let go of my arm, and I managed to keep it out of his grasps as I ran to the door.

As fate would have it, Aidou and Kain were a lot faster than I was. They both blocked my way. "You're not going anywhere," Kain told me. "I want to hear what else you've done." I looked desperately at him. How could he go along with this? Before he had gone out of his way to reassure me that vampires could be nice, but now he was trying to trap me.

"I haven't done anything," I repeated. I thought about it. _Really, other than that, I never did anything. Besides trespassing on Mrs. LaTurvo's property and taking an apple every once in a while. But she was nice, and didn't ever mind. I remember having some nice talks with her during the summer. I bet that she suspected that my father hurt me, but she knew how I felt about it._

"What about stealing?" Aidou asked. "What about trespassing? What about murdering?"

I gave him a confused look. "I-I'm not a murderer!" I exclaimed. I looked around the room. I had to get out of here. I'd jump out a window, I was that desperate. Before I had the chance to do anything, a knock came at the door.

"What's going on in here?" a voice called in. It was Takuma's. I felt relief flood through me. He would be on my side. "Kain. Aidou. Open your door now." They did.

Takuma glanced around and then saw me. My face must have shown distress and hurt, because he quickly motioned for me to get out of the room. "What do you think that you are accusing her of?" he asked with a tinge of anger in his voice. "And don't lie! I heard that last part! Lily-chan is no murderer!" he told them. He turned to me and with gentle smile told me, "go back to your own dorm, Lily-chan, you shouldn't have come here in the first place."

I nodded and quickly ran back down the stairs. I wouldn't be returning there any time soon. Even if Rin was there.

**Aidou and Kain's point of view **_(told in third person)_

"Why were you making all of those accusations?" Takuma asked Aidou. Without waiting for an answer he continued, "she's been through a lot! Don't make her situation worse!"

Aidou and Kain both were looking at the ground. Then Aidou went over to the coffee table and dug out the drawing. He went and showed it to Takuma.

"She's not who we think she is," he told him. Takuma didn't want to see the drawing. He had seen enough of her sketchbook to know that this would only be depressing. He shrugged the drawing off.

"She's a human. Aidou, don't bother her," he told him firmly as he turned away. As a final thought he added, "oh... and I will be telling Kaname that you were harassing one of the prefects today."

Kain rubbed his head as he murmured, "good job, Hanabusa. Now we will be in trouble and Lily seems more human than ever. We have to face it, we were wrong."

Aidou looked out the window and watched as Lily met Rin out near the edge of the woods. Even from that distance he could here her mutter, "where were you? I thought that we were going over our plan! Gosh... we have to get a start on it, we're about to get caught."

He turned back to his cousin, "no, Akatsuki, we're right."

**Lily and Rin's point of view **_(told in third person)_

"Where were you? I thought that we were going over our plan!" Lily exclaimed, "gosh... we have to get a start on it, we're about to get caught."

She gave a look at Rin that just read, 'struggling with so many secrets'.

Rin couldn't help but laugh. She was in a good mood due to her nice, long fly over the Sea of Japan. "I'm sorry, Lily, but you see, I was enjoying my flying a little bit too much today. I completely lost track of time."

Lily asked sarcastically, "what? Did you fly way off course or something?"

Rin nodded. "And it was great. It's a lucky thing that I decided to come back."

Lily rolled her eyes. This was so like Rin. She tended to laugh things off for the sake of making herself feel better.

"How about this, Lily? We both stay away from each other and try to gather info and then during the break time, we combine our findings," Rin suggested.

Lily nodded. For once Rin's idea made a little bit of sense. She paused, "wait, they're going to get suspicious if you stay here for break."

Rin had already thought about this so she answered, "I'll make up the excuse that my parents decided to go to Italy or some other country. Don't worry, it'll be fine. We should just get the research first anyway."

Lily nodded and in an excited voice replied, "let's do it!"

They slapped hands excitedly and grinned. They both had never planned to take down a high group of scientists before. If only they could be sure that they could handle it. But they were sure that they could have fun doing it.

* * *

So sorry, this took longer than I thought it would. It's not even that great. Just mainly expressing that Lily isn't well liked by everyone and that Aidou is getting her story all mixed up. Well, I'm glad that this chapter is over with. Not much of anything going on, I know. Soon I'll have an excerpt from the Lab. Maybe. (Tell me if that's a good idea or if it might ruin the story)

Tell me what you think. I'll continue soon, the next chapter will be better than this one. The poll for my next story is still on my profile, if anyone wants to vote, vote. I also try to update about my story every once in a while on there.

Notes: I have no clue if Sleepy Hollow or Christopher have train tracks by them. I chose random places in Illinois and changed them around keeping the location and populations close to the same.  
Nasrin is pronounced: Nazereen (it's weird) this is for people like me who get bothered when they think that they aren't saying the names correctly.


	14. Close to the Truth

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. That is: Lily Waters, Nasrin Gates, Luke Gates (former guardian), Mandi Waters (sister), Alan Waters (dad), Shawn Moore (obsessed boyfriend)_

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Fourteen: Close to the Truth

**Lily's point of view **_(told in first person)_

It was about a week since I had been threatened by Aidou. I had cut all of my guardian duties because of it. I didn't want them to start accusing me of murder again, nor did I want to tell them the whole truth just to get them off my back. And then there was the whole thing with Rin. Like we agreed, we had both tried to find stuff on the Lab, and while I didn't know how far she got I knew how far I had gotten. Nowhere.

The information was not just difficult to find. It was _impossible_ to find. The place was a top secret, government run business that could only be accessed through hacking, which was not one of my strengths. I really didn't want to hack anyway, in America it was a federal charge, especially if it was hacking into government computers. I don't even know what it would be in Japan. And I had no intention of finding out. There were no books on the place, I was almost positive. I had begun to browser search the words _lab _and _evil labs_ I was so desperate.

"Lily, are you going to do the guardian duties today?" asked Yuuki, "because I really need the help, Zero hasn't been doing it the past couple of days either, so I've been all alone."

I felt bad for Yuuki, and since it was my fault that she had to work most of the days, or nights, alone, I nodded. "I'll be there to help, don't worry," I told her. I put on a fake smile.

"Is something wrong, Lily? You haven't acted like yourself recently," she asked me. She sounded concerned. Well, who wouldn't be concerned when one of their friends was acting like the weight of the world had just crushed them one day?

I smiled widely as I answered, "no, nothing is wrong! I'm completely fine, don't worry!"

That went on all throughout study hall. I felt like I was being interrogated. After the last class, I didn't go to fend off the fangirls, I went to the horse stable.

I pulled open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside allowing the sweet smell of fresh hay surround me. I glanced around, normally there were stable hands in here, but today the whole place was empty. I walked down the aisle until I got to White Lily's stall. I walked in and then threw my arms around her neck.

"I want Shawn back!" I cried. I didn't know where that exclamation came from, but I knew that it was true.

Shawn was one of the only people who could make me want to laugh out loud. If Shawn were here right now, he'd know what to do about everything. He could handle it, and he'd defend me. I began to cry over it. I felt like a two year old, I had never cried over something like this before. Ever. After a while I forced myself to stop and go back outside.

It was dark out, the moon was halfway covered by clouds. _Oh, no! I forgot about the guardian duties! Yuuki is going to be so upset..._ I ran towards the school, but on the way I ran into the Chairman.

"Oh, Lily-chan," he exclaimed with a broad smile. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"

I smiled nervously in reply and looked around as I answered, "oh, really? I've been in the stable, I missed the guardian duties. Again. Sorry."

He kept smiling. This made me more nervous. Why was he looking for me? Was he upset that I had not done my job? I hadn't told anyone about what had happened during the dance between me and Aidou. I really hadn't. Takuma must have said something to Kaname then. I glanced around. He was alone. Kaname wasn't with him. Maybe it was something else.

"I know," the Chairman replied, "that's why we must talk in my office."

We began to walk towards the school building again. This couldn't be good. Why would he want to talk to me privately in his office when I had my job to finish? Well, I guess that I really wasn't doing my job. I hoped that nothing had happened while I was away...

We stepped into his office after walking in complete silence the whole way. It was dark and frightening until he switched the light on. I half expected to see Kaname there waiting, but the room was empty. I stood in front of his desk as he sat out and took out some papers. I couldn't read what was on them, but I could read what was on the file. It was my name.

"What's going on, Headmaster?" I asked quietly.

He looked up as he answered, "we have been trying for a long time at this school to allow humans and vampires co-exist, and so far we have been successful in making two classes suited for each group." He paused as he straightened his glasses on his nose. I shook a little. _This isn't what I think it is... is it? _I looked at him nervously as he continued, "but-as you know, the people in each class do not mix with the other class. And it's about time that we take that step." He looked at me. In a voice that held some excitement, yet was mostly serious, he finished, "I can't put just anybody into the class though, I have to put somebody in who already knows their secret. Lily, _you_ are the person that I have chosen."

It took me a moment to register this, but when I did I yelled, "what?! Why me? Couldn't you have put Yuuki or Zero in? They were here longer!"

I was seething. I didn't want to do that! I didn't want to be murdered by upset vampires who lost their ability to control their lust for blood! I felt blood boiling through me as I glared at him.

He was calm in his answer, although he had this small look of fear due to the way I glared at him. "Lily, I can't put Yuuki in there because she is too obsessed with Kaname to be able to learn anything, and I can't put Zero in because he already has refused due to his high dislike of vampires. Besides, you have missed guardian duties for a whole week, and this insures me that you are keeping an eye on things."

I groaned. "I'll do it. But only because you made me," I muttered as I looked at the ground.

This certainly made things more interesting. At least me and Rin would have no conflict over talking about our plans. Maybe she could go see her parents after all. I grinned a little at the thought. Just as I had given into whatever I was getting into the door opened. I glanced over toward it and saw Takuma standing there.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked a little nervously. He obviously didn't know why he was here. "I'm sorry that Kaname didn't come. He was working on something for the council."

He walked up to the desk and stood by me. "Hey, Lily-chan," he whispered politely. He gave me a small smile. "I haven't seen you for a while."

The Chairman now was smiling happily again. I winced and took a step back. Takuma looked confused. "See, Lily-chan! You already have a friend in the Night Class! You're going to be fine," the Chairman exclaimed again happily.

"What's going on here?" Takuma asked anxiously. "Is-is she coming to the Night Class?" He pointed at me. I took another step back. This was making me nervous, I had never seen Takuma so upset. "That's the worst idea in the history of the world! She is going to end up bitten, or severely injured. You don't want that to happen, do you?" he told the Chairman.

"No, but it's going to be fine. She'll be in your class, just keep her close to you," he replied. In response Takuma sighed.

I could tell that he had given up his case at about that point, but he pointed one more thing out before he completely gave up, "what if _I _bite her?"

I was a little frightened at the thought of somebody like Takuma biting me, but so that nobody would have any hurt feelings over it I kept my face emotionless.

"Try not to," the Chairman responded, "your bite won't turn her into a vampire, so if it happens don't let it happen again." The Chairman seemed to care about what happened to me, but I didn't really know at this point. He was putting me into a hive of bees almost. I bet that Zero was going to be extremely angry tomorrow.

He handed Takuma the papers and a pen. "I need you both to sign," he told us.

Before signing, Takuma looked over to me and asked quietly, "this is alright with you?" He looked concerned. I nodded slowly. It was better not to resist. The Chairman was stubborn, I'd give him that. Takuma signed and passed the paper over to me. I looked at it blankly for a moment. Then Takuma pointed to where I was supposed to sign. "You can sign in English," he told me.

I signed. _Lily Ro-_ I paused in the middle of my middle name. _Lily Rose Waters._ _Nasrin- that means wild roses..._ I shook the feeling off and finished writing my name. I couldn't look like a dunce when I was going to be in an elite class. I passed the paper back to the Chairman.

"Good, now, Lily, go get your things together," he told me.

"She's staying in the dorms, too?" Takuma asked bemusedly.

I was shocked too. That just made this situation that much worse. "Of course she will be. She's sharing a room with that new girl. Nasrin Gates," he told us. "I can't have any of the Day Class girls waking her up when she's trying to get some rest!"

_Great, how long will our secret hold now?_ I wondered. I glared at the floor. _Especially when I think that I've figured a part of it out!_

"Come on, Lily-chan, let's go get you settled in," Takuma told me. He took my arm and guided me outside.

He chatted about one thing or the other, I wasn't really paying attention. I was deep in thought and a little tired. _I have to talk to Rin... this is a majorly important situation._

I packed the little bit of things that I had. A couple pairs of clothes that I could wear when class wasn't in session, a hairbrush, toothbrush, my sketchbook was all I really had to pack. Everything else that I had was still in my backpack.

"Is that it, Lily-chan?" Takuma asked. He had stayed in the doorway to my room the whole time.

I nodded. I glanced around to make sure though. Nope, nothing left to take. I walked over to Takuma. "I'm ready," I told him.

He took hold of my arm again and led me off towards the Moon Dorm. He gave me some instructions on some of the things there, "there are many rules that we follow here, the most important one being that we don't drink real blood on campus. Lily, if somebody attacks you here tell me or Kaname, we'll handle it. I talked with Aidou and Kain about when they harassed you and then I told Kaname, they should leave you alone now. If they begin to bother you about it again, once again, tell me or Kaname. Oh, and make sure that Rin is taking the blood tablets."

When we reached the dorm, I hesitated slightly before following Takuma inside. I hated to admit it, but I was scared. The place was like on the night that I had first entered into here, dark and desolate. I couldn't help but grab for Takuma's hand again. There was nobody here right now, they were probably in class still.

"Don't be frightened, Lily-chan," Takuma told me, "I know that you and Rin like to hang out together, so you should be fine as long as she's with you. If she isn't, try to stay around me."

I nodded. "Thanks, for the encouragement, Takuma-san," I whispered.

He walked me to the room in almost complete silence. To get there you had to pass Aidou and Kain's room. And he pointed out Rima and Ruka's room a couple of doors down. "I share a room with Shiki," Takuma told me. "My room is close to yours, so I'll be able to hear you right away if anything goes wrong. Kaname likes to stay in his private study most of the time. It's right down the hall and around the corner that way. " he pointed towards the turn further down. "But don't bother him if you don't have to." he added as an after thought. "And this is your room," he continued as he reached past me and opened the already unlocked door. "Rin obviously doesn't lock it when she's in class." He frowned. "Oh, well, Lily-chan, you should get some sleep while we're all finishing up with our classes. Introductions aren't necessary, you already know who will be in your class."

He handed me the spare key, then patted me on the head a little before he headed back to class. I turned and looked at the new room. The Lab had sent Rin enough things that she had them strewn about her room. The whole place was a mess. One of the beds was made up neatly, while the one was left with the sheets in a mess. I went over to the one that was made and then dumped my backpack onto it. Then I looked at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. It was a little past midnight, but I wasn't tired. I took my time putting the little bit of things that I had in their proper places. Then because I could, I cleaned the room.

When I glanced at the clock again when I was finished I saw that only two hours had been spent. I would have to wait two more until I got to see Rin and report my findings. I got dressed in some nightclothes and then I relaxed on the bed, but I still couldn't sleep.

Finally I heard voices in the hall. "Rin, there is a human staying in your room," I heard Takuma explaining to all of them about how I would be joining them.

"What?! We have to share _our_ dorm with one of _them _now?" I heard Ruka say in annoyance. "I will tell you one thing, Takuma-sama, keep her away from me."

"What is the Chairman thinking? One of us is going to lose it!" I heard Kain say. His voice sounded concerned. Maybe I had been wrong about his intentions. Maybe he was trying to clear my name.

I smiled a little to myself. One more person on my side. When the door opened I pretended that I was asleep.

"Wow, you got a good roommate, Nasrin, she cleaned your room while you went to school," I heard Aidou comment. "I wish that mine was that nice." He added the last part with his cousin in mind.

I grinned a little, feeling more relaxed knowing that they all thought I was asleep. Then I felt myself falling asleep. Soon everything was dark and real sleep fell over me.

**Time lapse**

I slept until two in the afternoon, and then after that, despite what I tried, I could not go back to sleep. Knowing that Rin wasn't a real vampire didn't help any either because when I tried to wake her up she mumbled some nonsense about tacos and rolled over, curling up again in the covers. I pulled myself out and began looking through Rin's stuff to see if she had anything fun to do.

_No, no, no..._ I officially had nothing to do. I opened up one of the drawers in the nightstand and pulled out a one of the photos. When I looked at it, I saw my mother, lying in a car wreck. Dead. I screamed loudly. Almost immediately I heard a door opening and then slamming shut. I fell to the ground in a fit of tears. Soon Rin was beside me, taking the picture and Takuma was trying to figure out what had happened. He made me lift my head and ran his finger over my neck, checking for bite marks. Of course there were none.

"What's wrong, Lily-chan?" he asked. "Why did you scream like that?"

Rin let him see the picture. "I don't know how this got here," she told him. "It's not mine."

Kain and Aidou now stood in the doorway, they looked annoyed. Well, Aidou did, Kain was emotionless as usual.

"What happened here, vice dorm leader?" Kain asked. He walked over to us, but Takuma didn't let him see the photo. He handed it back to Rin. Rin in turn put it back in the drawer.

"I want to know what happened now!" Aidou told us in an annoyed tone. "I'm tired!" I noticed that he had his blanket over his head still.

He glared at me and I recoiled. He still disliked me.

Takuma looked down at me. He gave a gentle smile as he said, "you're alright, Lily-chan, go back to bed."

He stood up to full height, then turned to Aidou and Kain. "Go back to bed, she just saw something that reminded her of a bad situation," he told them. "She's fine, and won't bother anyone again."

Aidou stalked back to his room, even though Kain stayed, looking at me in confusion. "Are you sure she's okay?" he asked Takuma.

Takuma nodded. "No bite marks. Rin doesn't know what happened either," he told Kain.

Kain nodded and then headed out of the room. When he was gone, Takuma reached down and helped me up.

"Lily-chan, was that your mother in that photo?" he asked. I nodded. He glanced towards Rin. I could guess at what he was thinking. They were very alike. "Go to sleep," he repeated as he left the room.

Rin turned the picture over. "It's addressed to you, Lil," she told me as she handed it back over.

I took it and then without looking at the picture again, I read the back. _'You're too close.'_

**Time lapse**

It was about six in the evening now. Rin was currently trying to figure out how the photo got into her room. None of her ideas made any sense. A rock, an arrow, a flying nun. Nothing she said made any sense. But that was normal for her.

"Rinny," I whispered to her, "I think that there is something you ought to know."

She stopped her train of impossible ideas and scenarios and then looked at me. "What is it?" she asked, "do you know how it got here?"

In reply I shook my head but then told her, "I figured it out last night, Rinny. We're sisters."

She didn't say anything in reply. She didn't even have shock register onto her face. She did absolutely nothing. And then continued on with her 'real' problem, "do you think that they dropped it from a bird nest or something?"

"Rin!" I shouted in frustration, "stop it with your stupid ideas! Obviously _they_ snuck in here while you were at school and when I was asleep." I paused then added, "and I'm serious. We're sisters."

She gave me a disbelieving look. "I don't have any family," she reminded me, "I'm an experiment. Remember? This is me, Test Tube Baby Number One." She pointed to herself in emphasis.

I shook my head. "I'm Lily Rose Waters," I told her. "In Persian the name Nasrin would mean 'wild roses'. Coincidence? I think not."

"I don't understand," she told me with confusion in her voice.

In the next ten minutes I came up with a fairly good story about our existence. Nasrin was born a year before me. She was kidnapped and taken to the Lab. My mom was extremely sad that she had lost a child at birth so she decided to replace her with another. That was me. When I was born, she named me Lily after her name Nilofer, which meant water lily, and then she gave me the middle name rose in honor of the child that she had lost. This gave a good reason as to why she had been so protective with me. It made sense. It really did.

We then agreed that we were sisters. She ran to the bathroom and came back with two wine glasses filled with water. She handed one to me and then happily clinked her glass against it and in elation cried, "mazel tov! I am not a test tube baby after all!"

We were happy, but I couldn't help but think about the picture. _You're too close..._ _you're too close..._

**Away... in Christopher, Illinois **

"Did you send the message?" a female voice asked.

A man answered as he looked at her, "yes, they received it. They should understand well enough."

The lady smiled and nodded. "With any luck they'll take that hint. After all, they are getting too close."

They went on to another room. More people stood in it. "I believe that Nasrin may be getting too smart. She wasn't made with that in mind."

"She wasn't made with anything in mind," another responded. "But if that's what you believe, we can bring her back here."

"No, don't do that," the lady replied, "if she drops off of the vampires chart, they will begin to search for her. Who's idea was it to send her there anyway?"

She glared at all of the scientists there. One courageously told her, "I believe that it was Luke Gates, ma'am."

_He is one sharp cookie... but not sharp enough. We will always get her back. And her little friend too. You better take our hints and just obey, Lily, because we know everything about you. We know _everything_. _

_

* * *

_

Well... since my last chapter was awful, I decided to update really fast. I think that this one is way better, and I took less time on it! I think that them being sisters was a little see-through, but that doesn't matter. I hope that everyone liked this chapter.

**Please review! If there are any questions on _anything_ just ask. I don't mind and I can explain. It's my story afterall. I should know what's going on. If I don't explain it thoroughly, it's probably because I'm trying not to give anything away. (totally failing)**

**I also have a poll still!**

Notes: I didn't make the name meanings up, they are real.  
mazel tov: congratulations, blessing (Hebrew)


	15. Switching Classes

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas.  
Characters that I created: Lily Waters, Nasrin Gates (Waters), Shawn Moore, Alan Waters (father), Nilofer Waters (mother), Mandi Waters (sister), and Luke Gates (former guardian)_

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Fifteen: Switching Classes

**Rin's point of view **_(told in first person)_

"Are you sure that you will be alright alone, Lily-chan?" Takuma asked her in concern. "This isn't like the Day Class dorms, Lily, this place is dangerous for you."

Lily was currently trying to convince Takuma that she couldn't go to class. He was trying to convince her in return that if she didn't, nobody would be in close range to her. She didn't want to go however because she was nervous and because she was embarrassed that she had screamed in the middle of the night.

"I'll keep the door locked," she told him. "I'll be fine."

Takuma didn't answer her for awhile. I knew that he didn't like this situation. He had told the headmaster that he would keep Lily close to him, and he was already unable to do that.

"Lily, you should come to class the first day. You're going to need all the time you can get to catch up," murmured Kain as he walked up to stand in the doorway. "Why don't you want to come to class anyway? Is it because of what happened last night? It happens to everyone once in a while."

Lily looked at the ground and blushed again. I felt like laughing at her. I felt bad for her, but this had happened to me and it was only fair that it would happen to my little sister.

"Lily, is that it?" Takuma asked. "Don't worry about that, everything is fine now."

Obviously Takuma hadn't lost any sleep over it. We, on the other hand, had. But that was of no consequence now, I had to go to class and I wanted my little sister to come with me. Why should I go off by myself?

Kain was waiting in the doorway with Takuma now. He was on Takuma's side and was trying to get Lily to come to class. They weren't having much progress with convincing her, but her reasons for staying here by herself were few and not strong enough for them to let her stay here.

"Come on, Lily, you'll make us late," Kain told her, "go back in your room and get changed into your uniform. We have five minutes before Kaname gets upset."

He leaned on the door frame and watched us expectantly. Lily went back in and grabbed her uniform and then went into the bathroom to change. She had given up fast when he had arrived.

Kain was still waiting, but Takuma had left to go tell Kaname that they had problems getting Lily to come to class, but that she was coming right now. Lily emerged from the bathroom wearing the white uniform rather than the black one. I would say that it looked good on her. Her red-brown hair really was shown now, it drew your eyes right to her face. Even she looked pale like the rest of us.

Like the rest of them. The vampires. Not like me. Not an other.

Before she left, she grabbed her textbooks and her sketchbook and some colored pencils. She never seemed to put them down, drawing was like life to her. It was that important. If she messed up on a drawing, she would cry before she put it into the trash and then promptly began a new one. This was how her life was for her. She loved drawing with all of her heart.

And I hated it. I was awful at it, never had mastered any technique in anything artistic. We were complete opposites, we both didn't understand how we had the same parents.

I followed her out of the room as she followed behind Kain. For a moment she paused and turned to look at me.

"Rin, lock the door," she whispered.

I rolled my eyes and quickly went back to lock it. I always forgot to lock the door. Locked doors frightened me, but not as much as shots. Shots were the one thing that I was used to, but the same thing that I couldn't forget. I was frightened of the pain that they caused me each time that _they_ took me into that room, I was afraid that one day the shot would contain a poison that even I couldn't handle, I was afraid that nobody would even miss me when I was gone. Shots were the worst.

We went down to the room that everyone met in. Everyone was there waiting for us, Takuma wore his trademark smile and quickly had walked over to be with us. He seemed to be aware that Lily was nervous, well, more nervous than she normally was. Probably of the fangirls who no doubt were going to hate her for her transfer into the Night Class. He smiled gently at her and whispered, "it'll be all right, Lily-chan." Then we were waiting outside the gates for them to open. When they did the screams became louder. As usual. I looked at Lily and noticed that she winced back. I couldn't help laughing. She had thought that it was bad being the one who had to hold all of them back, now she realized who really had it hard. I had always felt smothered by all of the girls who clamored for Kaname, Aidou, and all of the other boys' attention. If I were one of them, even though I _really_ liked Takuma, I would have felt embarrassed by Aidou's mock wave and big, flirting smile. These girls were so easily fooled.

"So, Takuma-san, what class is first?" asked Lily a little nervously.

Takuma was waving to some of his fans, but managed to look down at her to answer. Some of the girls shot Lily death glares, she jolted back a little in response.

"Our first class is history," Takuma replied to her, "sometimes it's regular history, and sometimes it's our vampire history. It switches every day. Today is a vampire history day, I'm not quite sure how you feel about that, but I can't do anything about it."

Takuma looked like he felt guilty over the thought. He probably regretted convincing her to come, he shouldn't have made her come on a day where we would begin with an hour lecture about vampires when she was still nervous about being in the vampires class. Among other things.

Lily didn't reply, she looked very tired, but not upset. Quietly she followed us into the dark and eerie school. I could tell that she felt that the atmosphere was different here at night than during the day. I felt exactly the same way. I had at first hoped that the feeling would go into 'normal' stage, like it did in the Lab, but here it was just too difficult. They Lab made everything so blurry inside my mind that its atmosphere soon played little or no role since I rarely could think about it. Here, where I was treated with mostly respect, there was no blurriness to disappear into. There was nothing to hide in. Everything that I did was seen. I almost felt like I had no privacy here. Not that there had been any at the Lab, but when the experiment was over and I was back in my 'room' nothing or nobody had to be around me anymore. Here I had to try to make polite and pleasant conversation with everyone. I was better at it than I had originally expected.

When I first came here, I was frightened. I thought that my secret would be exposed right away, like what the Lab had figured. The second day of school had come and Takuma had already decided to befriend me. When I realized that somebody cared for me, I became happier. I started to talk a little bit to everyone there in the class. I could tell right away that Ruka didn't like me. I never understood why, but I figured that it had something to do with how I talked about Kaname and how I wasn't scared stiff and respectful around him like everyone else. This seemed to displease Aidou as well. My defense for Lily that one night hadn't helped me in his book any either. Shiki and Rima both were boring and I tried talking to them constantly, but they almost never came up with anything interesting and fun. Although Rima was nicer than Shiki, who cared mostly about his pocky. I still wasn't sure how Kain thought of me. I didn't know if he was for me or against me. If anyone figured out my secret, it was going to be him. He was quiet, calm, but clever. He would put the two pieces together quickly, although Kaname was beating him at this point. Nonetheless, I continued to act like myself around all of them. I might only have two or three more years to live. I was going to make the best of it.

Takuma and I led Lily to where we normally sat by the far window. The room was on the second floor, so when somebody looked out the window they could see farther away. Especially for a vampire. Lily settled in a seat closest to the window and I sat in front of her with Takuma. Then the lesson began.

**Time lapse **

I was half asleep on my desk. I couldn't pay attention. Behind me Lily was working on her sixth drawing of the day. She had suffered through the horrible lesson on the vampire 'food chain', so did I. I wasn't a real vampire, I was only posing as one. At least Lily got some comfort from Takuma and a small smile from Kain to reassure her that they had no intentions to treat her like a low down creature. She did receive some glares from Aidou and Ruka though. I felt bad for that. They would probably eat me _and _my sister one day.

We now were in the middle of the amazingly boring math lesson. It was to be expected. Lily couldn't understand any of the math, I could understand very little. We were both lucky that it was just a lesson today and not a quiz or a test. I would have to get Takuma to teach us both about what we were learning. Just when I thought that I was going to fall asleep for real, the class ended bringing us to our first break.

I glanced over my shoulder. I lied, Lily wasn't working on her sixth drawing, she was fast asleep on her desk. It was funny how she was positioned, she looked more passed out than asleep. She sighed and turned her head to lay it flat on the table. I noticed that her sketch was moist and then noticed that she was crying in her sleep. About what this time, I wasn't sure. Although I had some sort of idea that it was about her past. I knew that she was abused, or really, used to be abused. I knew that it haunted her still and yet that it also made her clever and talented. I knew how she felt.

I reached back and shook her. "Dude, you have to wake up," I whispered. "Class is over, it's a crime to sleep during the time you can talk."

She didn't wake up. I was beginning to think that she was actually passed out when she slowly and groggily woke up and stretched her arms. "What time is it?" she yawned. "Class is over?"

I rolled my eyes. So nice of her to listen. I was her elder sister!

Kain walked over to us and slid into the empty seat next to Lily. "I'll sit here during the next class," he told Lily, "Aidou is getting on my nerves."

Lily didn't respond. She looked down at her drawing. I did as well. "Great, my subconscious is still drawing Shawn!" she exclaimed. "And it's all wet! I can't believe that I keep wasting all my sketch pages!"

She was spastic about her drawings. That was typical, I had known that before she had come to the Night Class. I knew it because whenever we would hang out during class when she was a guardian, she would have her sketchbook out and would draw while I jabbed away. I think I was the one who forced her to begin unimportant drawings. I was just so boring!

"It's okay, Lil, everyone is obsessive over something," I told her as I yawned. Now I was getting tired.

"What?" Lily gasped. "I am not obsessing over him!"

She looked really angry, but I was having fun making fun of her via her secret crush she wouldn't admit was her crush.

"You have, like, ten different drawings of him in there! It's more than the rest," I continued. I grinned a little. I was evil, I was enjoying this.

She smacked me on the head with her sketchbook, thus starting an argument. We were so busy arguing that we didn't notice that we were being looked at strangely.

"I was annoyed by him! Why would I have a crush on somebody I was annoyed by?" Lily yelled at me.

"Well I don't know! But you have a crush on him!" I argued.

I felt somebody's hand on my shoulder and turned around to glare at them. How dare they interrupt our important conversation? It was Kain.

"Calm down, Nasrin, this is nothing to get into trouble for," he told me.

I glanced back at Lily who was now blushing harshly. She was looking at the ground, and appeared to be ignoring all of the people watching us. Takuma stood in front of her now grinning and Ruka and Aidou who had also been arguing had stopped and were watching us. We had chosen to act too close, too soon after Lily's transfer. We couldn't appear like good friends on the first day! We needed a slow build! What happened to our plan?! No contact until a month had passed at least and it was break when nobody could notice!

That plan ended well... at least we were sisters. We learned one thing, we had no clue how it was connected to the Lab, but we had learned one thing. It might be near to unimportant, or it may be the door that we had been missing.

We both looked at each other. I guessed that we were thinking the same thing. Heck, I _know_ we're thinking the same thing. Not only am I her sister, I had a mind power! Of course it appeared to work only with her, but it was still there. The only problem with that was, she was human while I was posing as a vampire. If I couldn't read the vampires minds, I couldn't show that I could read Lily's. It would show that I didn't have as much strength as they did and they would soon realize that I wasn't who they thought I was.

I smiled at them and sat back down in my seat. The teacher was by now returning and everyone was simmering back down.

During the next class, a chemistry class, they talked about their blood tablets as the class went on. I placed my head down on my desk and fell fast asleep.

**Lily's point of view**_(told in first person)_

I listened as the class talked about their blood tablets. It was more vampire knowledge that I found of interest, yet also of consequence. I couldn't really explain how I felt about having to hear all of this. I found it interesting because I believed that knowing more about them would help me devise a way to get away one day and go with Rin to America for the take down of the Lab. However it also made me feel out of place and hated by most of my classmates since I wasn't really on their 'level'. I was a mere human who was placed in this class as a, sort of, test subject of the Chairman's. They must really hate me. They probably think that he placed me here to taunt them. In a way, he did.

I didn't blame the Chairman for this. I would only blame him when one of the vampires lost it and decided to bite me even though they would be in big trouble. I mean, they would eventually, they would realize that the punishment would be worth what they would get first and then just... do it.

Now I shivered a little in my seat. What an awful idea. I was only getting myself upset.

I wondered if I really was scared of vampires. I hadn't really thought on it before. When I took the guardian job, it hadn't mattered to me about whether I feared them or not. I had been doing it so that I could gain a sort of trust with myself. Then I had been attacked by Aidou, but Kain was nice enough to come after me to talk to me about it. And then when I might have started to fear Zero, Takuma was there. Most of the vampires I knew had been kind to me, but was I still scared? Yeah, probably.

_Vampires, vampires, vampires..._ I thought as I lay my head down onto my desk and fell asleep.

**Time lapse**

It was a miracle. Class was over. We were now walking back to class. No fangirls while we were coming back which was another miracle. I stood a little behind Rin and Takuma. They were talking about the homework that Rin didn't understand. During the last period, Takuma had resolved to tutor me so that I could understand what we were learning. I tried to talk him out of it at first because I knew that it would be a huge waste of his time, but he insisted and I gave in. I was surprised that he didn't hang my secret over my head, he just treated me as if I was a normal little girl. Him doing this actually gave me some confidence. I could feel myself becoming more trusting of others. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. One side wanted to, but the other side wanted to retreat and stay the same way. Personally, I was ready for a change, but I wasn't ready to tell everybody about what I had been through. I found it slightly embarrassing and also very saddening.

I planned on hanging out with Rin in the library tonight. The dorm apparently had its own, so that the librarian wouldn't have to stay behind in the school's very late. I totally understood this and was actually happy about it, now Rin and I could research even longer.

Except, Rin wasn't too good at research. She got distracted way too easily. Especially when she was around Takuma. When they were together I noticed that she would often fumble with the ribbon on her uniform and blush a little. I hadn't realized that was how big her crush was on him. Well... actually, yeah, I had. She followed us to the library after all.

I trailed along behind them and when we reached the dorm, I began to drag Rin to the library. Takuma followed us.

"Are you two going to the library?" he asked.

He looked like a protective older brother. He was looking mainly at me when he asked. I nodded.

"There's nothing wrong with that, right?" I asked in return.

He shook his head and gave a small smile again. "No, of course not," he replied. "I'm just going to come with you two. Is that alright?"

We looked at each other.

_If he comes we can't work in secret! _Rin yelled inside my head.

_We can't tell him 'no'! He'll get suspicious then! Plus he may feel upset that we're leaving him out..._ I responded truthfully.

_Fine, he can come. But once he's there what will we do with him? _Rin asked again.

_Well, you have a crush on him! You ought to keep him distracted, I'll check my medical records out, _I told her.

We both agreed within a few seconds. We nodded.

"Of course," Rin told him with a smile. "You can come."

That was my first day. And this was the new major obstacle. Takuma was coming in once more where he really didn't belong. Not that he could help it. He was only doing as the Chairman had told him to do, keep me within calling distance in case a 'situation' occurred. I hoped that later on Takuma would trust me to be on my own. I didn't want to spend my whole school life under his watch like some young child. I knew how to act and defend myself. A little. A very little.

I just never had thought to defend myself. Ever. I just couldn't do it.

I sighed and walked into the library with Rin and Takuma. Like everything else in the moon dorm, it was large and beautiful. Everything inside it seemed to be an antique. All of the tables, chairs, and bookcases were of a dark wood and there were desk lamps on each of the tables. The books seemed to go on forever inside the room. _Why couldn't Rin find what she was looking for?_ I wondered. I turned and looked at her with a face that just said, 'did you even look for anything?' She just shrugged. It was probably her code for 'no'. It figured.

She set to work talking up a storm with Takuma about some manga she was reading and though I wanted to jump in and join them in their conversation, me being a manga fan myself, I quickly headed over to an open computer.

I logged on under my student name and then opened up an Internet page. It was all in Japanese. Not that I had expected anything else. I changed everything over to English once I signed onto my Google account. I checked my Email first. There normally would be messages coming from Shawn in here. I hadn't replied to any of them, though he was hysterical, mainly because I didn't know what to say. I couldn't explain what had happened and why I had left of my own accord. It was impossible. But when I checked my Email I didn't see any new messages from Shawn, instead I saw one from somebody I thought would never Email me.

My dad.

* * *

Sorry about everything. I feel like everything is going downhill fast. My next chapter will be better, promise.

Shawn may or may not be coming in soon. If people review, tell me whether or not you like hearing chapters from him.

**Please review! I beg of you, I need reviews! **

**Also--if it's not too much trouble, go to my profile and look at my poll. I'm trying to see what pairing most people like in Vampire Knight. **


	16. He's my Dad

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas. (Lily, Rin, Mandi, the Dad, Luke, and Shawn)_

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Sixteen: He's my Dad

I sat there for a moment in shock. I did nothing. I didn't know how I remembered to breathe in that moment. This was it. This was what I had waited for. I had always wanted this to happen. I had always hoped that he would try to talk to me. I had always wanted him to remember me...

In a daze I moved my cursor up to the message and clicked on it.

_Lily- I know that what I've done to my family is wrong. I know that it was cruel and unthinking for me to put all of you through that torture. Especially so close to when your mother died. I feel very sorry and I know that you probably will not ever forgive me for what I have done to you, but I want to tell you that I have changed. I am your old dad. I love you and need you as a daughter. If I only knew that you were alright than I'd be happy again... but not knowing whether or not I have caused the death of not one of my daughters, but two, is killing me inside. I at least want to know that you are safe and hopefully happy where you are. I don't want you to come home to Sleepy Hollow if you don't want to, but if you could please tell me if you were okay... I would appreciate it. I'll be waiting and hoping. Please reply, I am very sorry... -your dad_

I don't know why, but the Email brought tears to my eyes. My emotions got all jumbled up and instead of smiling and laughing and cheering for myself, I cried. I tried to hit the reply button, but my fingers wouldn't react correctly. Out of a self defense mechanism, I hit the delete button instead. Then I cried harder because I was really upset.

My one hope. My one dream. Gone. Diminished by my stupid force of habits. Oh, this was great. Just great! I slammed my head down onto my upturned palms and sobbed some more.

I couldn't even remember why I had come to the library. All I could focus was that the Email had been the only one that I could gotten. My dad really seemed upset and now he would never even know that I was okay! I was an idiot!

Finally I had enough control on the situation to exit out of the window and then to log off of the student computer. Then without a second thought I ran out the back way so that Takuma and Rin wouldn't see me crying like a little baby. Rin would hang it over my head and Takuma would think that something really awful had happened to me. And strangely, comfort wasn't really something that I wanted right now. I just wanted to go and crawl under my bed covers and never wake up. At least, not for a very long time.

I don't know how I figured out the way to my room so quickly. It was probably the adrenaline going through my veins in that moment, but in any case I made it to my room in record time, running past all of the doors of my classmates and not even caring that Kain came after me and that I slammed the door in his face. I just dove under my covers and didn't resurface, I just dragged my pillow down with me and curled up and closed my eyes tightly.

_I don't care... I don't care..._ I kept repeating to myself. _It was just an Email. Just an Email. I can contact him through Shawn later..._ But I felt like I couldn't do that. It was so impersonal. I wanted my dad to know that I didn't mind talking to him! Talking to him through Shawn would be awkward for all of us! And I couldn't admit that I had deleted my dad's first Email! What would that tell him? It would tell him that I had not wanted to speak with him, but later I had decided that he might be serious and that I really did want my dad back! I rubbed my eyes and realized that I had run out of tears to cry. I curled up and then fell asleep slowly.

**In No Particular Persons point of view **

When Lily had run out of the library, Rin and Takuma had not known until they realized that she was taking a very long time on whatever she was doing and that they were getting tired. They walked in the direction where she had gone and saw that a chair had been knocked over and that her sketchbook and textbooks had been left at the desk. Takuma's heart jumped a little.

"Damn! I was supposed to look after her!" he cursed.

He bent and picked up the fallen chair. He glanced over at Rin who had grabbed her books. He was worried over Lily, and Rin looked worried as well. He hadn't expected something to happen directly on the first day. He thought that it would have taken at least a week. Rin glanced at him.

"Maybe she just went back to our room," she told him. "maybe she just got really tired."

"I don't think that she would leave all of her stuff behind her though," Takuma told her in reply. "Why would she do something like that?"

"I don't know, but we ought to check there first. Even if something else happened, she would have gone to her room first, people always go to their rooms in a crisis. They think that it's the safest place because it's familiar," Rin told him.

He agreed and they started to go to their rooms. When they got closer they say that Kain was standing outside Rin's and Lily's room knocking multiple times on the door.

"Come on," he called into the room, "open the door."

They both approached him and Takuma asked him, "is she in there?"

Kain nodded. "She came running through the hall a couple of minutes ago. She looked really upset. I tried to get her to stop and calm down, but she just ran into her room and slammed the door in my face," he told them. "I've been trying to get her to come to the door for a while now."

"I'll see what's wrong," Rin muttered and turned the knob.

The door was unlocked. She swung the door open and then reached over and tried to find the switch. She kept reaching when she couldn't find it and then fell. She hit the floor with a soft 'thud' and groaned a little. Kain reached in on the other side and flipped the switch. Takuma was grinning, despite the seriousness of the situation.

"Be quiet," Rin told them while blushing a thousand shades of red.

"We didn't say anything," Takuma told her still grinning.

Rin groaned and tilted her head back and leaned against the wall. After awhile she glanced back into the room. She could tell where Lily was hiding. She was under her bed covers. Judging by the way no sound was coming from the bed, she concluded that she was asleep.

Takuma made his way over to her, but then Rin grabbed his arm. He looked back at her in surprise.

"She's asleep," Rin told him, "it would be best if you would leave her alone. She'll overreact if you're standing over her when she's obviously trying to sleep something off."

He seemed to agree, despite wanting to see that his young friend was alright or not. He turned to the door and then with a quick glance over his shoulder, yawned and went off to his own room. Kain also headed back to his room.

"Call me if anything happens," Kain told Rin.

Rin nodded and then closed the door behind him. She then glanced back at her sleeping sister. She wondered at what happened, but decided to not bother her. She instead went and got dressed for bed.

She wondered at what could have happened that would make her little sister so upset as she brushed her teeth. She looked up into her reflection and looked hopefully into her own purple eyes for the answer. It wasn't there, of course, and she rinsed her mouth out hastily. She turned the light off and then went to her bed and lay down looking up at the ceiling. The darkness seemed to move after a while and soon it was becoming images. Toys. Places. Faces. After awhile, Rin could have sworn she saw herself in the ceiling and with that she fell into a nightmarish sleep.

**Time lapse –the next day**

Lily was up out of bed quickly. She had slept everything from the last night up and realized that she had an image to recreate. First thing on her list was to apologize to Kain for slamming the door in his face. That had been completely rude, especially after he had stayed her friend even though his cousin still had suspicions on her. Then the next thing was to explain to Rin what had happened. She wouldn't tell Takuma, he already knew enough of her family life. She didn't have to tell him everything. Besides, she couldn't tell both of them, and she would rather tell her sister.

She took a shower and then put on the white Night Class uniform. She tied the tie just as Rin came into the bathroom yawning.

"Morning, Lil'," Rin yawned.

"Good morning, Rinny," Lily answered. "You ready for class today?"

Rin groaned and shook her head. "Oh, yes, yes," she told Lily sarcastically.

Lily grinned and then left the bathroom so that her sister could use it. She sighed. She wasn't ready for today. Well, she was, but she wasn't. She heard a knock at the door and went to answer it.

She opened it a little and saw that it was Takuma. He looked worried, but then a little relieved when he saw that she had answered the door.

"Lily-chan, are you alright? You left suddenly last night, you made me and Rin worried," he told her. "Did something happen to you?"

Lily gave him an obviously fake, but yet nice smile. "I'm fine. Nothing happened. I just got startled by something, that's all," she told him. "You know, it's because of before..."

He understood. He reached forward and wrapped her in a friendly and reassuring hug. Lily stiffened at first, but then relaxed. He smelled nice. Like nutmeg. She knew why Rin liked him now. He was very sweet. She felt guilty over trusting him before Shawn with her secret though and broke out of the hug quickly.

"I'll see you in class then if everything is okay," Takuma told her with a genuine smile and then he went back to his room to grab his textbooks.

Lily sighed and turned to go back to her own room to get her own books, but a hand grabbed her arm and caught her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Aidou standing behind her. Kain wasn't there.

"What is it?" Lily asked.

She was a little frightened of him still. Because of what he said. He was looking down at her with something that spelled danger.

"I want to know why you're here still," Aidou told her. "What reason do you have for being here? Who brought you here?"

Lily looked at him wide eyed and then stammered, "K-Kaname did."

"Why would Kaname bring a girl like you here?" he demanded.

"Don't get this way before class, Aidou," Lily told him. She yanked her arm out of his grip.

She turned to go back into her room again. Then she hesitated. She turned back around and faced him. Of course, he was still there. He expected to get the door slammed in his face or for Lily to yell at him, but that wasn't what happened.

Lily's eyes were a little bit cloudy and dull as she looked at him. She told him, "if I were given a choice in this whole matter, back then I would have come here. But if I knew what I know now back then, I would have stayed in my home. But I couldn't have done that because then the outcome would have been entirely different."

She turned and went back into her room leaving a very confused Aidou outside. Aidou stood there for a moment thinking over what she had told him.

_She wouldn't have come at all... _Aidou thought. _Why would she tell me that? What would have happened here that would change her opinion on coming here, but would have made the outcome different by as much as she is implying?_

What did that mean? Was she telling him something? He rubbed his head and went back to his room to collect his books. He was tired in any case and didn't want to sit around figuring out Lily's secret. Having her in class wasn't as bad as what he had originally thought. She actually had been very entertaining the other day. If she hadn't had a panic attack during the night he probably would have congratulated her on arguing with a vampire. Even if it was over something petty like boyfriend troubles. Boyfriend troubles...

"_I was annoyed by him!" Lily had exclaimed. _

Aidou thought about how she had reacted to that. Maybe she wasn't so evil as nervous around others, in particularly boys, because of some form of abuse. It wasn't because she was watching them for a weakness, it was because she was watching them to see how they reacted to certain things. She knew where she was safe, and she knew where she was in danger. She reacted to the situation accordingly. Which was why she was frightened by him.

_I can't believe I gave her the impression that I'd hurt people to get what I want..._ Aidou thought to himself.

He knew that he had done it. He had done it on purpose. Well, not at first, but definitely after he saw that drawing with the girl screaming, and then after he saw the other girl surrounded with broken glass. But now, he knew what those drawings really were. At least he thought that he did. He walked back into his and his cousins room and grabbed his textbooks.

"I can't believe how upset she was yesterday," Kain told him. "She slammed her door in my face. I don't really blame her, but I hope that she's okay."

Aidou looked at him in surprise. Lily had been that upset over something? So upset that she had slammed a door in his cousins face? He thought that she had trusted Kain.

"I just saw her. She looked fine," Aidou told him. After a moment he added in an admittedly guilty voice since he knew that his cousin had trusted Lily from the beginning, "I think that I was wrong about her. Just not completely wrong. She's still hiding something, but I don't think she's the perpetrator anymore. I think that she's the victim."

"I figured so much, you just didn't listen to me," Kain told him. "What should we do about it? It won't be easy for you to convince her that you changed your view and now wish to be on her side." After a moment of silence he asked, "should we tell Kaname?"

"No," Aidou replied. "I don't know for sure what she went through yet. We should figure out the whole thing before we tell Kaname what we think. We don't want to bother him with a crazy notion that may possibly be wrong."

His cousin nodded his agreement and then grabbed his textbooks. "Let's go," he said.

They left to go and meet in front of the gates. Just after they left, Lily and Rin came out of their room with their own books.

"What happened last night that made you so upset?" Rin asked Lily as they walked to the gates.

Lily glanced at her sister before answering. "I got an Email. It was from Dad," she said.

She said it almost casually now. She was very calm about it, despite being so worked up over it the night before. Her sister stopped suddenly and nearly shoved Lily into a wall. Lily groaned a little and glared at her.

"Sorry," Rin muttered, "did you open it up? What did it say?"

She was anxious. She wanted to know about her father. Of course, she knew that he had been abusive to her little sister, but she wanted to know what he was doing without Lily now.

"He kept apologizing," Lily told her, "he just wanted to know if I was alive. He sounded desperate."

Lily looked at the ground. She still couldn't believe that she couldn't answer him. She felt so guilty.

"Did you answer?" Rin asked again.

Lily shook her head miserably.

"Well, why not?" Rin exclaimed.

"I accidentally deleted it! That's why!" Lily cried.

She didn't burst into tears. She had resolved not to do that again. She swore that she wouldn't overreact again. She looked up at Rin who had now backed off considerably. She appeared to know what to do. She changed the subject entirely. She smiled and then asked, "so, you ready for history class?"

They both headed off to their class. Lily smiled a little. Telling Rin about the Email incident had been the right choice. It had to be though. Rin was her older sister after all.

* * *

I know, my ending is a little cheesy... which reminds me, I have to make a dish that describes my identity and my friend suggested mac and cheese _because I am cheesy._ Ugh...

I hope that everyone liked this chapter. I really am trying to get a move on the story, but there's a lot going on right now. (not just in the story either) Maybe there will be more interesting things in the next chapter. Maybe.

Please review! There is also still a poll on my profile.


	17. In my Heart

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Seventeen: In my Heart

**Lily's point of view **_(told in first person)_

I stood outside the Moon Dorms with Rin. She was leaving for vacation. Her idea of saying her parents were in Italy had backfired when they sent a letter filled with high hopes to see her during the break. It was unfortunate because we still needed to work and now she was worried because she didn't know where she was staying. The whole thing was very tedious for her as well as me.

It was break time. It had been two weeks since I had received the Email from my dad. Everything had been pretty much normal after that. Most of the students in the Night Class had begun to associate me with being a crybaby and going into hysterics easily though, and that wasn't really the image that I wanted. Even Takuma had begun to associate me that way. He now watched everything that he said to me and tried not to remind me about Sleepy Hollow too much. I didn't really know if I appreciated that because I didn't want him to treat me differently than he treated others, but he was just being nice.

In fact, another person had expectantly become like my best friend. It was Aidou Hanabusa who use to hate me with a passion. Now he almost never left my side during class or during meal times. Though he once in while put distance between us when he was hungrier than usual. I couldn't believe it at first. I was certain that he had come over to bother me, but it had turned out exactly like the incident with Shawn. I hoped that Aidou didn't have a crush on me. I really didn't need to attract any other boys, let alone vampires. I wasn't even that pretty for goodness sake!

I sighed. That was beside the point. Right now I would be happy for anybody's company besides that of my 'family'. Zero would no longer talk to me. He didn't like that I was in class with vampires. I had told him over and over again that it wasn't my fault, that it had been the Chairman's idea, but he didn't listen to me. I bet he wouldn't ever talk to me again. Because it was his fault that Zero was upset at me, I was upset at the Chairman. I wouldn't speak to him. And because Zero was upset at me, and I was upset at the Chairman, Yuuki was trying not to talk to any of us. Our whole 'family' was currently divided. Hopefully the break would help all of us.

I watched as Rin's limo taking her to the airport disappeared. Soon after it was out of sight the rest of our classmates came out to get into their own limo in order to go to Aidou's home for the break. They appeared to do this every break. They would all go to the same place and it was odd for one of them to go apart from the others. Rin wasn't included in this observation, however, since she was the new student and hadn't been in that situation yet.

I looked back at the now approaching vampires. There was Aidou, still daydreaming; Kain, looking calm as usual; Ruka, looking annoyed about something; Shiki and Rima, bored as always; Takuma, who was trying to tease Aidou; and then Kaname, who was being followed by Yuuki. When they got to the limo that was waiting for them, Takuma stopped to talk to me for awhile. Of course, he knew that I was a little depressed because my whole 'family' wouldn't talk with me and now Rin was gone too. He smiled at me kindly.

"If I could, Lily-chan, I'd take you with us," he told me. "but I can't do that because my grandfather may call me away. And also because I don't think that you would like to be around us during our break. I don't think that the Chairman would approve anyway."

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He then repeated, "I really would like to do something for you, though. I feel like it's in a way my fault that everything is this way for you right now. You know, with your family all upset at each other." to himself he muttered, "I should have just kept refusing to sign those papers..."

I smiled at him a little to reassure him that I felt everything would be fine. "You know how it is sometimes. We'll all be better after the break. I'm certain."

"I hope that's true," he told me. He gave me a final smile and waved as he got into the car. As everyone else went to get into the car they all said good-bye to me, each in their own way. Shiki patted me on the head as he passed me, Aidou gave me a large hug and I bet that my eyes were saucers due to my surprise, Kain grinned at me after Aidou hugged me and just said 'good-bye', Ruka ignored me which I took as her heartfelt 'good-bye', Rima gave me a box of pocky, and Kaname thanked me for working hard in class and as a guardian. I smiled nicely in reply to all of this and waved as the limo disappeared.

Little did they know that I too was leaving. See, our whole family was having a major blow out...

"_Zero! Why won't you talk to me?" I cried. _

_I was literally crying. Tears were coming down my face uncontrollably. I had never had Zero treat me this way before. Well, I had, but he had never been this upset at me. _

"_Zero, it's not my fault! I didn't ask to be placed in the Night Class! The Chairman put me in there!" I cried again. I grabbed his sleeve and looked up at him._

_He shrugged me off roughly and then moved to slap me away from him. I froze and just stood where I was. I watched him in surprise. _

_He was angry. He looked at me in hate. _

"_Why should I believe you?!" he yelled at me, "you and that _other_ vampire girl are friends. And you're friendly with the vice dorm leader. How do I know that you _didn't _ask to be put there?"_

"_I didn't!" I told him. _

"_It doesn't even matter," he replied, "I won't speak to you as long you are in that class!"_

_He stalked out of the room. I turned to the Chairman and then gave him a glare. He shook a little and tried to stand up away from his desk, but it was too late. I had already gotten in his face, literally. _

_I could feel the desk splinter under my hands. And I looked up into the Chairman's face that was filled with shock. _

"_Zero is angry at me and it is all your fault, Headmaster!" I yelled, "if everybody's going to be insufferable over the break, then send me back to Illinois so I can see my boyfriend or I will never speak to you again!"_

_He was very frightened now, I could tell. His teeth were clenched together and he was jolted back a little in his chair. _

"_I don't know, Lily-chan..." he replied. Then he saw the murderous look on my face. He stammered, "I-I think that could be arranged though!"_

_I grinned at this and replied, "good, but I won't speak to you until after the break."_

_With that I left his office and went back to my own room._

I shook a little in memory of the events that I had forced to work in my favor. It wasn't really nice of me to frighten the Chairman that way, but since it was his fault... anyway, I would be leaving in an hour. And though I loved my sister, she wasn't very good at secret keeping. Ever since the Email with my dad, I had realized she slipped little bits of our secrets and I was always covering for her, so I hadn't even told her about my 'vacation plans'. I tried to put on a normal front so that nobody else would figure it out either. And it had worked.

I sighed again and then went back to my room to get my things packed back up. I would take my sketchbook, journal, and a couple of outfits since I didn't want to arrive in my school uniform. That was all I would need from my room. I would get the money, ticket, and passport from the Chairman. Then I would be off.

Thinking of Sleepy Hollow made me happy. I wanted to go back. I never thought that I would think that way in my life. I wanted to go back there.

I went into my bathroom and changed into casual jeans and a tanktop covered by one of my sisters extra sweatshirts. I borrowed my sisters clothes a lot now. And I didn't have to be careful what I wore since my father wasn't able to hurt me anymore. I grabbed a pair of flip flops, but thinking that the weather wasn't really permitting flip flops over in Sleepy Hollow, I decided to wear sneakers instead. While it wasn't cold here, I knew that the weather in Sleepy Hollow around this time would be frigid. I had left in early fall, now it was early winter. I had to be prepared.

After my bag was packed I went outside to wait on the cab that the Chairman had hired to come get me. He was waiting out there to give me my plane ticket, already confirmed, passport and some spare money that was already Americanized. He began to cry when he saw me in my 'I'm so ready to get out of here' faze.

"You have to come back to Daddy, though!" he cried and then started running to give me a huge hug.

I felt my eyes get wide and I took a step back and felt somebody pull me aside. The Chairman fell to the ground when he tripped on a rock. He landed where I had been standing. I felt very lucky and let out a sigh of relief. Then I looked up to see who had saved me. It was Zero.

"Zero-kun," I whispered. "what are you doing here?"

He looked down at me with the same expression that he always wore on his face. Annoyance.

"Do I have to have a reason for seeing you off?" he asked me in return.

I was startled that he'd come to see me off when he had been _so_ annoyed with me a little while earlier. He did appear to be there for that reason though. I couldn't think of any other reason why he would come. Just as I was about to say something more to him, Yuuki came running up. She was out of breath, and panted for a while.

"I thought that I was going to miss you," she panted. "I hope that you will come back soon. I didn't even know that you had a boyfriend back in America! Why didn't you tell me?!"

She looked upset, but at the same time really worried. It was like she wanted to know why I was really going because she didn't believe me. I smiled at her.

"You never asked. And I'll come back here, my boyfriend doesn't get to keep me that long," I told her.

Lucky for me, the cab came at that time and I didn't have to talk anymore with the family that wasn't my real family. I waved as I got in and then let myself relax on the hour trip to the airport.

I couldn't wait to get there, but I kind of felt guilty over not telling anyone. I hoped that they wouldn't worry if I didn't come back right away. Or if they called and I wasn't here and they found out that I had gone back to Sleepy Hollow. I didn't want any to wonder why I had gone there or to worry that I might not return.

Especially Takuma and Rin. I didn't want either to know because I knew that Rin would freak out about me deserting her in her 'quest' to defeat the Lab. And as for Takuma... I didn't want him to freak out over my safety and end up telling the Chairman or Kaname about the whole situation. That would be bad. Since it may, or may not, be true anymore and I didn't need him getting worked up over something that wasn't even a bad situation anymore! Although it would be a nice gesture. I guess.

In any case, I would be alright. If anything went wrong, I'd go to Shawn's and then book a flight back to Japan and Cross Academy and then everything would be the same as before. Exactly the same as before. And my dad wouldn't have changed. Which I hoped wouldn't happen. I wanted him to be the dad that I use to have. I really did, and then maybe the Chairman would let me go back to live there and then everything would be fine... everything would be normal again... I could go back to my old life...

but I couldn't. In my heart I knew that even if my father was different than when I had last seen him nothing would ever be the same. There were too many memories that haunted both of us. That's why he only wanted to know that I was happy. He didn't want to have to force me to be in his house anymore. He wanted me to find new memories of better people now.

And I had. It would be difficult to want to leave the people I knew in Cross Academy. Excluding the fangirls of course. I felt that I had friends here. People in the Night Class liked me for more than my blood. Maybe. In any case it would be difficult to leave Takuma and Rin. And sometimes Aidou made me laugh and Kain could calm me down about things. It would be difficult to leave them forever.

Even with the addition of Shawn and my old dad. It was just impossible. I had a lot going for me at Cross Academy. Even if I got into tizzies with my fake family, I still would have to stay here. I couldn't imagine my life without some of these events in it.

I leaned back in the cab and smiled on realizing this. It made me feel better. I would visit Shawn and my dad during the vacations under the code of seeing my 'boyfriend' and maybe I could even get some research on the Lab completed. And I wouldn't have to worry about losing my friends at Cross Academy.

Everything would be fine. I hoped.

* * *

Okay, it's over. I was going to try to make it longer, but I like it like this so I'll leave it. The chapter, not the story. It is definitely just getting into the real conflict now.

I'm going to bring Shawn in the next chapter. I think. It depends on how thing's work. But it's getting really close now.

**Please review! And I still have a poll on my profile!**

Some things are a little choppy, but I think that it's okay. I hope that things will clear up later in the story.

I think that my birds have mites... uh oh... I'll have to take care of that this weekend... it's a good thing that school's ending...


	18. Back Home Again Maybe

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Eighteen: Back Home Again... Maybe

_Vroom... _that seemed to be the sound the engines made as they landed. The sound pulled me out of my dazing. I didn't know what to call it. I wasn't sleeping, but I was definitely not awake. I didn't know if it was dazing. I guess that it must be a stupor of some sort.

The plane ride was longer than anything I'd ever been through before. It took over a half a day to get home, which took at least a whole day away from my vacation. Which meant that it took two days, since I had to count the time in for the trip back. At least the flight attendants were nice. I managed to persuade them to give me a free bag of trail mix because I was hungry, but didn't have any yen. They take pity on the little girls who get sent far away to a family they don't know. I didn't tell them the family I didn't know were the ones sending me to the family that I did know. What the flight attendants didn't know wouldn't hurt me. And the trail mix was good. _Really _good.

Once the people in coach were able to move, I grabbed my backpack from in front of me and jumped into the aisle. I was ready to get off. We were in concourse M. Internationals. And I had to take the L to the city and then wait for Shawn to meet me in the Rock n' Roll McDonald's. He said he wanted to see the exhibit on the top floor, but I know that he just wants to ride the escalator. So I'll be there, eating a burger and drinking a pop, while Shawn goofs around, waiting to go home to see my dad and a nice cozy looking bed. It couldn't be that bad though. It was fun to look at the displays.

I caught the Blue Line and then sat back in the seat watching nothing in particular. Just thinking. When I heard my stop called out I stood up and simply walked off with my backpack. Then I walked the rest of the way. As I stood in front of the building I wondered how on earth Shawn expected to get here. He would begin by stealing his dad's truck. He would then drive approximately nine minutes to the train station where he would catch the Milwaukee West and after an hour of riding would then catch bus 33 at Hubbard and Artesian. Then he would get off at Ohio and Wells and would walk the rest of the way. It was very complex to figure it all out. But it was better for me to know how to do it so that I could get back to Sleepy Hollow. Besides, this wasn't my first time going to Chicago by train. I'd done it a couple times in the process of getting away from my dad and school. Sometimes the train schedules gave me more headaches than school did.

I ordered a Big Mac and a sprite and then went to the second floor to sit on one of the couches to eat. This was always a unique experience, you couldn't just sit on the first floor in a regular booth! You had to be different! Shawn's words, not mine. The same old same, old was fine by me. Shawn was already waiting for me behind the exhibit. He was drinking a large pop like there was no tomorrow with his eyes closed, and for a moment he didn't even notice me. Then so slowly that it was almost comical his eyes opened and looked at me in boredom. Then he seemed to recognize me and they snapped open and he jumped up. He put his drink down and then wrapped me in a large hug. At first I stiffened in surprise, but then relaxed a little and hugged him back. It was a little awkward. We hadn't seen each other in so long, but the hug was reassuring.

"I thought you were dead," Shawn whispered into my hair. "I didn't know where you were or why you weren't answering your Email. Lily... I was really worried."

I couldn't say anything even though I heard him. Tears were in my eyes and I sniffled. It was strange, I felt safe in his arms. Completely safe. I broke out of his hold though, I set my pop and meal down on the table and then turned back to him. He looked at me in surprise and then saw the tears in my eyes.

"Lily... did they hurt you? You didn't tell me anything in your Email. All you said was when you would be arriving to see me, and that you agreed to meet me here," he told me. He gently took my hand and then asked again, "what did they do? Where were you?"

I sniffled again and more tears fell. I wiped them away with the hand not being held by Shawn. I didn't know what was causing these tears. I was happy that I was with Shawn, not sad. I was so confused.

"N-nothing. Shawn, they didn't do anything to me. They're very kind, and they respect and appreciate me. I'm treated like family," I told him. I stammered on some of the words due to the tears, but it was what I believed and true.

"Are you sure that's true, Lily? You seem shaken," Shawn replied. "What kind of people have you been staying with?"

"Good people. The man I live with is the headmaster of the school I attend. Then I have a 'sister' and a 'brother' who are his adopted children. I have friends in the school and everything is fine. I don't know why I'm crying. I'm so happy to see you!" I told him and gave him a hug.

I rubbed my head into his chest and he slowly wrapped his arms around me again. Years of denying that I liked him were falling away. I hadn't known how much I liked him until I hadn't been around him. I hadn't known that he would be hard to not miss. My tears slowed to a stop and then I pulled out of his arms and grinned.

"I'm hungry. It was a long flight and it was cold outside," I told him as I collapsed onto the couch.

"Oh, it's not very cold out there. Nothing I can't handle anyway. Where were you? Normally you play tough to the coldness," Shawn told me.

"Only Japan," I told him and then took a bite of my burger.

Shawn didn't say anything and after a while I looked at him. His face was priceless. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were saucers. He looked completely shocked. But probably not by my reply, but rather how I treated it. He must have been wondering why I had gone so far away. As a ate a little I kept watching him.

"What is it, Shawn?" I finally asked.

He went out of his shocked phase at the question and then asked his own question in return, "Japan? Why Japan? Why go so far from me?"

"It wasn't because of you! And it wasn't my choice! Shawn, I fainted in the graveyard. If it hadn't been for Kaname I wouldn't be here right now," I replied.

Shawn just sat there in resignation. He didn't say anything again. He looked a little guilty. Slowly he muttered seemingly to himself, "this is my fault. I should have confronted you about this a long time ago. Then you wouldn't have had to leave." He turned to look at me and then asked, "do they want you to come back?"

I nodded. "They don't know that I have a dad. I told them I was an orphan. The only person who knows all about my situation is Takuma Ichijou," I told him. When I mentioned Takuma's name I blushed and looked down at the floor.

"Oh, I see. You're going out with someone," Shawn sighed. "so you don't want to come back. You want to stay there with him." He paused, but before I could jump in he continued, "I thought that you actually cared about me! I kept your arrival away from your dad, I'm the one who changed him in the first place! Lily, how could you do this to me? You told me you weren't even interested in a relationship with a guy yet. And now here you go out with some guy you don't even know?!"

"Shawn! Listen, I am _not _going out with him. He was talking to me one night, then he saw my sketchbook laying out on one of the tables in the living room we were in and he started leafing through it. He saw some disturbing pictures of me and then figured it out. He's very smart, Shawn. My secret isn't such a secret. Everyone knows that," I told him.

"Why were you talking to him in the first place?" Shawn asked again.

I didn't say anything. I didn't know if I could tell him. Kaname and the headmaster had sworn me to secrecy on the vampires secret. Could I tell Shawn? Probably not. He would just be even more concerned for my safety and I would never go back to Cross Academy. What could I say then?

"Well...it's a long story..." I told him nervously.

"Well, that's a lousy excuse!" he said and jumped up from the couch and stalked away.

"Wait! Shawn! We had such a great reunion! How could you think that I would cheat on you? We weren't even officially dating, so you can't be upset!" I cried but all reason had left him.

I watched him stalk out of the restaurant. Then disappear from sight. I sank down into the couch and began to cry. What an awful start to our relationship... I should have told him the whole truth, no matter what anybody's reactions. Then he would understand that Takuma and I weren't dating and that I had to go back for multiple reasons. Most importantly that Takuma and I were not dating though!

I gasped for air in the midst of my tears and then wiped them away as best I could. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and another offered a tissue. I smiled at whoever it was and then took it. I quietly blew my nose and then looked up at the man. He had light brown hair and gray blue eyes. His hair was short, it was like my fathers, hanging down a little, but not much. He wore a look of concern on his face. I didn't recognize him and I was a little nervous at this.

"Just broke up with your boyfriend?" he asked.

"In a way," I told him. I grinned a little. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know you."

He smiled a little at me and then replied, "of course you don't. But I know you, Lily." My eyes snapped open and he continued, "will you please come with me? I'm Luke Gates. I use to be Rinny's guardian. Please come with me. It's only a matter of time before they figure out your location."

"Figure out my location?" I asked in confusion. _Who's trying to figure out my location? _I wondered. But I stood and followed him out of the restaurant.

**About one hour later**

"Are you hungry?" Luke called from inside his refrigerator.

"No, I had a burger over there," I told him.

I was still confused as to why I was here. It made me nervous. This was the man that had sold my sister to the Lab. He could sell me to the Lab if he wanted to. Hesitantly I sat down on the couch in the living space separated from the kitchen only by a breakfast bar. I looked up at his form bending at the refrigerator still.

"Want anything to drink? I've got pop, juice, bottled water, et cetera," he called again.

"Do you have Pepsi?" I asked.

"Yeah, do you want one?" he asked me again.

"Sure," I answered.

He took two cans and then tossed one to me. I caught it easily. He then came in and sat in a chair to the left of me. It was closest to the exit. I had sat down on the couch in front of the large window at the back of the apartment. His chair was blocking my other escape. If it was even necessary.

"You've been in Japan for a while now," he told me. "I didn't know that Rinny had a sister until then."

I watched as he took a sip out of his Pepsi before I replied. I didn't really know what to say anyway. I replied with the most important thing on my mind currently, "where's Rin right now? You didn't sell her to the Lab again did you? She's on her 'break' from there anyway. You wouldn't disrupt that little bit of peace for her, would you?"

Luke looked at the ground in thought for a moment. Then he looked up at me with sadness in his eyes. "No, I didn't. I know where she is. She's staying with a man called Mark down in Decatur, it's closer to Christopher than Chicago. They're tightening their grip on her, as you can tell. I began to track you through Rinny and saw that you had received an Email from your dad. Your next move was clear to me, you would want to meet him again since you deleted the Email. I had to intercept you. You see, no matter how much you want to see your father, you shouldn't have come here. The people at the Lab are trying to find you now. You have nothing for blackmail right now, because your father is different. I'll take you to see your father and to try to explain to Shawn again, but try not to betray your friends in Japan as well as keeping a low profile on who Rinny is. It's for the best, you'll see," Luke told me.

I was worried now. He was trying to help me? I couldn't believe it. Had he had a change a heart? I gave him a look of confusion. He sighed in reply and closed his eyes.

"I sold her back to the Lab for her own good," he told me. I bristled at this reply and he continued, "she had to learn more about that place before anything that you two are planning to do now could work."

I exclaimed, "but we don't even have any plans! We can't figure out anything!"

He held up a finger as he gave a sigh. "That's what they want you to believe," he told me, "you have figured out a lot. You know the patterns, when people die the most, when they'll stop the experiments, when the breaks are... the patterns keep you alive. Human nature follows patterns. If you find the pattern than you can survive. The Lab can't help having a pattern. They're scientists. They have a pattern. It's erratic. It varies, but it's there. And they don't want you to find it. Lily, you're smart, you'll find it, so they're tracking you. You're in danger if you leave the vampires of Cross Academy. They can protect you for now, anyone who associates with Rinny is immediately going to be assumed a vampire since they believe Rinny is a vampire."

I interrupted him as he tried to explain again. This time I was in anxiety. I didn't know what he was talking about. I wasn't in danger! I was an ordinary human girl! "I'm not in danger! I don't need protecting! Why do they want to find me?"

Luke reached over and touched one of my hands. "Because, Lily, _you_ are the experiment that they want. Not Rinny," he replied.

I sat in shock. I was the one that they wanted? Not Rin? The one that they tortured with inhumane experiments wasn't the one they wanted? I couldn't grasp it.

"I-I a-am... an experiment?" I stammered in a whisper.

"Not a genetics experiment, though I have no doubt that they would change you to one if they got you into their hands," Luke told me. His expression softened a little toward me. "I know that this must be very difficult for you to grasp. You're surprised and confused. I know why. You're having a hard time believing that you could be an experiment. It's because Rinny already failed. They don't want her anymore. They're going through her to bring you in. Once you're in, she's out. Lucky for me, I persuaded them to put her into the Cross Academy. Now she can protect you and you protect her."

Now I was even more confused. How did we protect each other? And why hadn't they taken me a long time ago?

I rubbed my head. I was so confused. I felt like I had a head ache.

"You still don't understand," he told me, "that's okay. It'll make sense later. Lie down on the couch and take a nap for now. Tomorrow we'll go to Sleepy Hollow, then we'll return here and I'll tell you all the information that you'll need for hacking."

That brought me out of my daze.

"_Hacking?_" I asked.

What had I thought about hacking recently? That I didn't want to break the law to get this information. There had to be another way! I looked at him in desperation.

"I'm sorry, Lily, but there's no other way. You'll have to hack," he told me apologetically.

He stood up. Then as he patted me on the head he said, "get some rest. You had a long day."

He tossed me a blanket out of a basket and then left. I lay on the couch but was completely awake. I couldn't believe what was happening here. My life was upside down. _They _didn't want Rin. _They_ wanted me! Our plans would have to change. Suddenly _I _was the valuable one. Not Rin. But why me? Why was it always me? It seems that I always got the short end of the stick. Takuma found out my secret, but not Rin's. Takuma was more protective of me, but not Rin which got her upset at me multiple times. I was abused and left by my siblings. Shawn misunderstands _everything_. Now I'm an experiment. What was I going to tell my sister?

I shook my head and then closed my eyes. A couple of tears escaped them as I finally fell asleep.

* * *

I said that I would update on the weekends now, right? Well, that's my new intention. I have a lot to do these days. (I have Drivers Ed. it's awful, but I have to do well in it)

I hope that everyone likes this chapter! Sorry about the whole Shawn thing... I brought him in like I said though... he'll probably end up in Cross Academy somehow... maybe. It's really iffy. I did bring Luke in though! This should get interesting... Talk about a turn of events...

**Please review!!**


	19. Surprise!

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Nineteen: Surprise!

I sat in the passenger seat and stared out the window as we headed to the suburbs. Flying by were buildings, and then there were trees. Just trees. And snow. The sunlight would glisten off of it and would nearly blind me. I felt bad for Aidou. He was right, sunlight could be tortuous. And it was windy. Very windy. I could see the wind blowing snow across the flat, empty fields of peoples farms. There horses were all shut up tight in their cozy barns. I wondered how Kidd was doing. It had been cold when I had left him. I always attempted to make the right renovations to the barn, but this year I hadn't been there and I had no clue if my father had taken care of my pretty boy.

I sighed and glanced over at Luke who was currently driving. I was trusting him for now. He had been really nice to me, unlike what Rin had told me. He seemed very protective of both me and Rin. He told me that he hadn't wanted to sell Rin to the Lab, but it would have looked weird for him if he hadn't. And she had to have the experience. I wondered what torture she had had to endure there when she returned. What kind of tests could be worse than the ones that they had already put her through? They had already changed her from human to human genetic hybrid. Even Luke didn't know exactly what she was. We both knew that she wasn't human though. That was for sure.

Luke looked at me and gave me a soft smile. He was trying to assure me that I was safe as long as I remained with him. Being an experiment was still pretty shocking to me. Even if I wasn't an experiment right at this moment. I was a wanted experiment that they would torture until they were bored with it. Then I would be a dead experiment, like all the others.

"Why?" I whispered out loud.

"'Why' what, Lily?" Luke asked.

"Why do they want me? I'm so confused," I told him. "Why can't they just steal another baby? Why do they want me?"

"I don't know, Lily," Luke answered me honestly. "I'm sorry, but I don't know. I only know that they want you."

"How could they even track me? When did they begin? How come I never noticed that I was in danger before?" I asked all at once.

"I don't know why they didn't just take you. But I do know that it began right after Rinny first found you. For some reason the Lab took an interest in you. Maybe because you were Rinny's little sister that your mother kept off the charts," Luke told me again. "I'm trying to figure out how they were watching you. I'm not sure. I'm not a major part of the organization. I only give my suggestions on where to put Rinny and get paid a share of what the Lab gets."

We were quiet for the rest of the ride. Finally we pulled into the long drive to my family's farm. I felt a mixture of nervousness and excitement as I looked out to the fields that were empty except for the snow. The fences had been replaced and painted and the whole farm looked new and clean. The stables looked better than when I had left.

There were two main stables. One was larger than the other for the horses that we would retrain. It sat to the right of the entrance for easy access with the trailers. There was a large yard in front of it for unloading, and in front of that there was one large pasture. Then on the other side of the drive there was a larger pasture. These pastures were used for grazing. Then beyond the grazing and stabling for the horses that we trained were the circle arena and the show arena. The show arena was outdoors, but had large stadium lights. They use to be broken, and I couldn't replace them because I didn't have enough strength, or courage, to climb to the top and replace them, but now they were looking good and ready. There was also an indoor arena that we used during the winter. It sat to the left of the drive while the other two arenas sat to the right behind the stable. After the training area was our house. It wasn't a mansion, but it was big enough for three kids and two parents. There was the first floor with the kitchen, living room, and simple dining room plus a bathroom and then the second floor had three bedroom and another bathroom. And then there was our attic that was furnished. It had it's own bathroom and a lot of space. That was where I slept. I kind of liked it up there. It felt safe. The other stable was behind our house. It housed our own horses. If Kidd was alright, he'd be there.

When Luke had brought the car into the area in front of the house I jumped out. The car hadn't even stopped all the way yet. I ran to the steps of the house as fast as I could, which wasn't fast enough because of the wind. The side door would open into the kitchen, I ran to it and threw it open.

There was my dad. He was looking at the family album. When the door opened, he looked up slowly and saw me. I looked back at him. He was crying.

I ran to him and threw my arms around him. He slowly put his around me too. It was awkward. I mean, I hadn't had a hug from my dad since kindergarten. Soon he let go of me and looked at me for a long time in silence.

Finally he whispered half to himself, "I thought for sure you were either dead or gone away forever."

His voice was rougher than it had been when I was a young girl, but that was what happened as people got older. He was close to fifty now after all. But it was clear, not drunken like I had heard it last. It was actually nice to listen to.

"No, everything is alright, Dad," I told him.

I felt tears streaking down my cheeks and reached up and rubbed at them. Then Luke came in. At first he stood in the doorway, then my father noticed him and he stepped further into the kitchen, enough to reach out and touch my shoulder.

"Who are you?" my father asked him, "what do you want with my daughter?"

"I only want to protect her for a little while," Luke told him.

My father's face went from anger to shame. He looked at the floor in despair.

"Lily, please know that I am different now," he whispered to me. "I won't ever hurt you again."

I nodded. I knew that he wouldn't. Not if he tried this hard on the farm. The farm always would do this. It was what we were.

"Luke, may I talk with him for awhile in the barn?" I asked, looking at Luke over my shoulder.

He smiled a little at me and nodded. I sighed a thank you and then followed my dad out the door again. We walked in silence, not to the family barn, but to the stable used for the horses in training. I wondered why we were going here, but then I heard sounds coming from the building. There were horses in it again.

I looked over at my dad who was now smiling a little. His reddish brown hair matched mine exactly. The only things about us that were different were our eyes and heights. Everything else was exactly the same, including our attitudes (if you exclude him beating her when he was drunk). We loved horses more than anything and always found comfort in them. And we were artistic, we loved draw. Well, I liked to draw, he liked to create diagrams and floor plans. Just because it didn't look like anything interesting or elaborate when you were done doesn't make it art. I use to be very close to my dad. He had taught me everything that I know about horses. How to train them, how to ride them, how to groom them, how to fall off them... I feel like I have never been away from him. Even when he was abusive.

We enter the barn, my dad pulling back one of the sliding tan doors. I enter first, looking around me in awe as I walk in. I look at the loft and everything. Everything looks new and well taken care of. For a stable at least. I don't know what any of the Night Class members would think of it.

The Night Class...

I couldn't stay here long. I had to go back at some point, and I might as well explain to my father where I was. I turned to see him leading out a pretty palomino filly from one of the stalls. I watched her in awe as he led her to me. Then he stopped and I let out a breath that I had been holding. I reached and began to stroke her soft creamy mane.

"She's pretty..." I sighed, "what's her name?"

"Goddess," he told me. "she's yours."

I just stood there stroking her for a moment before I registered what he had said.

"What?!" I exclaimed in surprise. Then I continued in a softer voice, "Dad... you didn't have to do this."

He was blushing a little as he answered, "I had to do something for you. And you know that we both love horses, so if you would never have returned it would have worked out well for me too."

I playfully gave him a disappointed look. "So this isn't about me?" I asked him, I started to fake cry.

He grinned in response and enthusiastically replied, "yep!"

I smiled at him and then took the lead rope. Poor Goddess probably was wondering why we were keeping her away from her hay. Then I thought about something else.

"What happened to Kidd?" I asked.

My dad pointed to a corner stall and I walked over to it with Goddess in tow. Inside of the stall was my lazy buddy Kidd. He was chewing on hay in one of the corners with his eyes half closed in boredom. He didn't even respond when I came up. I knocked on the wood.

"Hey! What about a hello to your dear friend Lily? And her new friend Goddess?" I called in.

He looked at me, but didn't stop chewing. I couldn't help feeling rejected. I rubbed my eyes, then I yawned. Finally Kidd came over and looked at Goddess with his normal bored eyes, but I who had known him for a long time knew that he was interested. I got Goddess to move up to him and they touched noses. I finished the introductions.

"Kidd, this is my new horse Goddess. Goddess, this is my old horse and friend Kidd." I watched them both as they looked at each other curiously and then... 'snap'... I turned and saw my dad with his old camera.

He took the picture that had just been taken out of the slot and then smiled at it, even though nothing would be on it for awhile. I watched him in some detachment. His camera had always bothered me. I never understood why he had to keep that old thing. Oh well, it was okay. They were quick mementos for both of us.

"Dad, will you take some pictures of me riding Goddess and Kidd?" I asked him.

He smiled at me and nodded. I smiled in return and tied Goddess's lead to a ring in the wall before running to the tack room to get my saddle, grooming kit, Kidd's halter, and both of their bridles.

A little while later I had groomed them to my satisfaction and had gotten quite a few pictures with them at my fathers request. Then he had set the camera up on its tripod so that he could get into one of the pictures with me. I sighed in slight annoyance, but couldn't help smiling because I was really happy. Then I finished up and tacked them up and led them away.

Now I was in the indoor ring with Goddess. I waved to the camera and then went to the mounting block. Kidd of course was waiting on the sidelines. I hoped that he wouldn't mind, but I really wanted to ride the new horse. I placed my foot in one of the stirrups and then swung on easily and gracefully. I set off at a walk and then a slow trot. All the gates were smooth. I soon was able to react well. I asked for a slow canter and relaxed into my saddle.

While I rode I focused on what I was going to do when I had to leave. What would I tell the Night Class? I couldn't hide under the pretense of having a boyfriend in Illinois forever. They would believe that only so long. I couldn't easily tell anyone about my father either. Half of the class believed that I was an orphan! More than half the class! The only ones who knew that I actually had a dad were Rin and Takuma. And Rin was the only one who knew that he had Emailed me. And nobody knew that I had actually gone to see him. Excluding Luke.

I sighed and headed for a small crossbar jump. I took it easily and faintly heard the 'snap' of the camera.

Was now the time to tell everyone the truth? Or was it something that I had to keep a secret forever? I should at least tell Rin that I had seen him. Maybe Takuma deserved to know also, since he had been nice to me.

I guided Goddess to another jump, this one higher than the first, and jumped it just as easily. Once again a 'snap' sounded. I decided that I should leave things to play out the way that they should. I couldn't mess with them too much.

I smiled and then waved to the camera.

'Snap'.

A little while later, we were all sitting at the kitchen table. Freezing. The heating had gone out while we were in the stable. It was warmer in there now. I was wrapped in two thick and warm blankets and still shivering. My dad couldn't resist taking two pictures of it so that he could give one to me, but post the other on his fridge. How considerate.

I tried to take some soup while keeping my arms and hands in the covers so that they wouldn't freeze, but I failed miserably. I wrapped the blankets around me tighter and then went to lie down in the living room. Naturally both Luke and my father followed me into it.

To get to the living room you would have to go through either the hall off the kitchen, that also went to the staircase, or through the dining room. The hallway also went to the entrance to our home. If you were to go up the stairs, you would enter a hallway again. That hallway would have three doors on the right side, one on the left, and one at the end. The first door had been my parents bedroom, then the second door had been my brothers, and then the last one had been mine and my sisters. The door on the left was the bathroom. Then the door at the end led up to the attic. The place where I had spent the last eight years of my life. It had its own bathroom and prior to my abuse, had been used by me and my siblings as a bedroom when guests came over. Which was rare. I guess that I lived in a small and simple home, but this was my home and I wasn't really ashamed of it.

I watched them as they sat in two open chairs.

Then my dad had to ask the forbidden question, "where have you been?"

I sighed. "I've been in a private school in Japan," I told him. "The man who adopted me runs it, so it doesn't cost me anything."

My dad looked surprised. "I hope that you're worth it," he muttered sarcastically. Then he went on to ask, "how did you get there?"

I shrugged. I still didn't know. I had been unconscious, but I wondered if Kaname had a private jet or something. I didn't even know why he had been there, alone in the graveyard. I guess that it was just good luck. "Kaname found me unconscious in the graveyard. You know, after you... yeah..." I trailed off after I realized what I had said.

I looked at the floor for a while and the whole room was silent. Then my dad whispered, "I hope that the people there are nice to you."

"They are. I have a lot of friends. Maybe you can meet them one of these days," I told him. "they're very friendly to me. I think that you'd really like them."

I told him then all about the Night Class, excluding that they were vampires of course. Then I told him about Rin, excluding that she was a human genetics experiment. Then I told him that I was in the Night Class which was for elite's, he laughed. Laughed. At me. Because he didn't think that I was smart. It was all in good humor though. I really wasn't in the class because I was smart, I was there as a-an experiment.

The rest of the day was nice, although it was cold. We sat and talked and caught up. Everything seemed okay, until Luke tapped me on the shoulder and whispered that it was time to leave. I nodded and apologized to my dad and told him that I would be back soon.

I didn't know if it was true.

**Away... in Christopher, Illinois... again**

"Did she come?" a woman's voice asked.

"Yes," came the reply of a young teenage boy.

"Then why isn't she here?" the lady asked again in annoyance. She glared at the boy.

The boy stammered, "be-because Luke Gates intercepted her."

"There goes Luke Gates again... what's our next move?" she asked her associates.

One hesitantly suggested, "follow her?"

At first the lady wanted to scream at the person, but then thought about it. She nodded. "Yes... follow her..."

* * *

I updated sooner than I would have normally. (now at least). I wouldn't get use to any exact pattern. I've found that for me it's impossible.

I think that I should explain a few things, too. I use to have that the living room was off of the kitchen (if anyone paid attention to that-I'm a detail freak, especially on houses), but the design of the house flowed better if the kitchen had a dining room next to it, so I changed it.

I also am going to put Shawn in Cross Academy (no offense to the person who said that they didn't like Shawn-I don't like Shawn either. He's too annoying. I was actually considering Kain/Lily before it was said and before I even began my story, I just don't know if it will happen. I can force it, but it may sound like fake love.)

I hope that my story starts to move soon. Oh, and I know that it sounds weird that she would get a horse right after they were getting back on track, but if you saw what she was thinking in I think, chapter thirteen, it makes more sense. She and her older sister tried to keep the business up. She stopped when she was turning twelve because it became impossible. I also notice that she accepted her dad right away. This is because she could tell he was caring about things again because he got the farm up and running again. She would have been more hesitant if things weren't changing and he was only sitting and crying in remorse. She wants to at least forgive him.

**Please review! And there's a new poll on my profile relating to this story. (if I don't get enough votes, I'll just take the answer as 'no' and not even try the Takuma/Rin anymore-Rin got too fangirlish anyway.)**

Notes: Chicago is actually better to be in on a windy day than in a small town surrounding it. This is because the tall buildings block most of the wind while in the smaller towns the wind just goes right through. (I feel bad for Lily being stuck in her freezing house):


	20. Return to Cross Academy

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Twenty: Return to Cross Academy

I watched the snow fall on the other side of the window in Luke's living area. I had everything in the room memorized by now. I had been in here almost non-stop. I even slept in this room. I couldn't really help it. I was scared. I didn't want to be caught by _them._ The Lab.

I had heard about the horrors from Rin before-hand, and then afterward from Luke. He had told me that he wasn't sure why I was targeted, but he was certain that it had something to do with me being Rin's sister and they hoped to follow the 'good-blood'.

I didn't like to be referred to that way for multiple reasons.

Luke trained me with hacking codes and now I could hack anything in my sleep. He even quizzed me on advance mathematics and I actually understood what was going on in the Night Classes studies now. The only subject that I now hated, was the one that use to be my favorite. Chemistry. I didn't like to think about the poisons and mixtures that could be injected into me. But Luke insisted that I had to know. He even knew a little on the history of vampires and tried to catch me up with what they all knew since he claimed that I should know about other species since one day I may not be a human. So he even knew that at some point in time they would just grab me and not care about being discreet. In essence, my vacation was like the continuation of school. But that wasn't all Luke did with me.

He also took me to see some movies and to the book store. He took me out to get pizza and Italian beef, the two things that I had missed the most about Chicago. And he took me to the Shedd and a couple of other museums in Chicago. Now I would go back to Cross Academy with some nice memories, but it wasn't much. I had some books and had caught myself up on manga that I had missed out on. And it was all in English, which made it that much better. I wouldn't have to translate every little thing that I didn't understand, nor would I have to ask Takuma or somebody else nearby for some little thing that they would think that I was crazy for not knowing. Although Takuma was nicer about it than _some_ people. My referring to Aidou of course.

He always teased me about not knowing anything. He claimed that I was a country bumpkin and had grown up on a little farm in the middle of nowhere.

He was wrong.

I grew up on a large farm in the middle of nowhereland.

He wouldn't be able to comment on my Japanese much longer either though. Luke had taught me a lot on that too. It would appear that he was fluent in Japanese. Well... not fluent, but he was close to it.

And I didn't really care if I was from nowhere. It didn't hurt me any. Sometimes.

"Lily, we have to go now," Luke told me as he gently took my arm.

I nodded and smiled a little.

We had to go now to the airport. Today I was returning to Cross Academy. Or rather tomorrow. Depending on the times. The weather was unpredictable and so was the Lab, so the sooner I got back before the end of the break, the better.

The weather had been awful for the whole break, which was partially why I had to stay inside. The other part of course was the Lab.

It had snowed like there was no tomorrow and though the wind in the city wasn't as bad as in the country, the coldness on the lake was pretty bad. So we had only walked to the book store and the theater. We took a cab everywhere else, or the L. I had forgotten how cold the city was.

Now we were in his car and heading towards the airport. This time I had a coach ticket and a check in bag as well as my carry on. My carry on was my school bag and I was dressed like a returning Japanese student. In the school bag was my laptop and a couple of new mangas that I had bought. As well as a math workbook that Luke insisted that I work in for at least ten minutes. He was that way. A very conscientious father wannabe. I didn't understand why Rin didn't like him. Oh yeah, it was because he betrayed her.

I wondered if he would do the same for me when the price was right.

I chanced a glance at him and watched as he drove the car towards the Ipass lane. It was difficult to imagine him doing that. Especially since he hadn't really been against Rin at all. He wanted to help her too. I was just his priority at the moment.

I sighed and leaned back into my seat.

"I'll take you to check in and then help you with the bag," he told me, "and then I'll see you to customs. Rin will be waiting there. There's safety in numbers."

I sighed a breath of relief upon hearing my sisters name. I hadn't been able to contact her all week and I had been almost certain that she had died. I had been getting worried.

We arrived at the airport and Luke parked the car in a parking lot and stuck a government tag onto his vehicle. He then took my suitcase and led me to a train that would take us the rest of the way to the airport.

We didn't talk at all. But by the time that he was walking me to customs, I couldn't help but give him a loose hug of thankfulness.

"Thanks, Luke," I told him and then headed to the customs room without waiting for a reply.

_**Later~~ on the plane**_

"I am so hungry..." Rin complained.

I leaned back into my seat and watched as she groaned and placed her hands over her stomach as she leaned back as well. She stared at the ceiling in over dramatic agony. I groaned myself, she had been that way for the entire plane trip so far. She thought way too much about her stomach. With good reason of course.

She had hardly eaten anything during the whole break. The man she was with was negligent and left her alone in her room with little to do and almost never dropped anything off food wise. I felt bad for her, but she had already eaten me out of pocket change and the ride wasn't half over yet.

"You need to get a grip, Rinny," I whispered to her. "take some blood tablets, you have them, right?"

She groaned again and replied, "how would those help?"

"Well, they work for vampires and their cravings, they might curb your hunger for a little bit," I told her.

It was a white lie. It did curb vampires cravings. I just didn't know how we were related to vampires. But Luke had told me that it shouldn't affect us in any harmful way if we took them without having a thirst for blood. Which probably meant that they were good for something.

She reluctantly took the container out and popped two into her mouth. She nearly gagged, but swallowed.

"Well that hit the spot..." she muttered sarcastically. "it certainly took care of my hunger issues..."

I chuckled a little at her and only stopped when she glared at me. For a while after that it was quiet, but then she started to ask me about my break.

"Well, I went to see Dad, he really is different. He's really nice now, I've got some pictures in my bag. I'll show them to you," I reached down and dug into my bag.

In a moment a reappeared with them and handed her a couple. I looked over her shoulder as she looked at them.

"That one's of me, but you can't tell because I'm nearly swaddled in blankets, it was really cold without the heater," I told her as I pointed to the one with me in layers of blankets.

"I bet, I just slept all day," she muttered. "I wouldn't have noticed if the heater went out. But it probably did."

I grinned. Then I pointed to the one with the two horses and my dad.

"That's Dad," I told her.

She groaned. "Why did he have to look like you?" she asked. "now I won't feel like I belong in the family. They don't even know that I exist."

"It's alright, Rinny," I told her. "the Lab's your family too, remember."

She groaned again. And then handed me the pictures back.

"Everything can work out for you, of course," she muttered in jealousy.

There was a pause and then I murmured really softly, "no, it isn't."

"Uh, yeah it is," she replied.

"Uh, no it's not," I told her again. "It's not Rin! _I _am the new experiment of the Lab! _You_ have been canceled!"

There was another pause in which Rin just stared at me. Then she slowly grinned.

"This... is a joke, right?" she chuckled. "this has got to be a joke! I'm brilliant! I know all the tests and what to do like the back of my hand! Why would they choose somebody else who has lived a normal life her whole life?!"

"Shh! Keep it down! And yes, they would," I replied. "I don't know why though."

She stayed quiet, just staring into the area behind me. The flight attendant touched my shoulder and I turned around. She bent and smiled as she gave us another bag of trail mix. I motioned that I didn't have anymore money, but she shook her head and then went away. Rin took the trail mix and poured some into her hands and then handed it to me. I did the same and we both slowly ate. After a while, we went to the back-rows and spread out on the seats back there to sleep. I didn't sleep though.

_**The Night Class Coming Back to Cross Academy**_

They were all riding in their private limo back to the Academy. They were all happy to be returning to Cross Academy because they were tired of being in Aidou's mansion. It was nice there, of course, but it could get hectic. Takuma and Aidou seemed to always start a fight. Of course Takuma was only teasing him, but Aidou always took it the wrong way or said something that upset everyone and it created a big problem. And then halfway through they realized that they had gotten use to Lily's presence and it was weird to _not_ have a human with them.

They were glad to be returning to Cross Academy to where everything was normal. They of course were coming back a couple of days before the Day Class because they didn't want to be rushed. And they could get a couple of lessons out of the way so that they could have a couple days off where they didn't have to parade in front of the Day Class girls.

Takuma leaned back in his seat and smiled to himself. He was looking forward to seeing Rin and Lily again. He had been really lonely without them around. For some reason, them not being here, or together in general, just didn't make sense. It was impossible to think about. They just belonged together. They were practically related. They even seemed to read each others thoughts. They got anxious about the same things. They thought that the same things were funny. They knew about the exact same things. It was odd to think that they weren't together over the break. Maybe next time Rin and Lily would come with them to Aidou's. He was certain that nobody would be opposed to the idea.

Aidou and Kain were speaking about something in whispers and Ruka jumped in to scold them over it, so he assumed they were talking about Kaname. Rima and Shiki were sharing pocky, and Kaname was looking out a window, obviously thinking about Yuuki. The only one who was alone, was Takuma. With the exception of Seiren, but she was always alone, except when she was protecting Kaname. He didn't really feel lonely, he felt that he could be a sort of bridge between everyone, he could get along with all of them. Nobody really were his best friends though, that was why he was looking forward to seeing Lily and Rin again.

He had thought of Lily and her situation one night when everyone was asleep. He had never wondered about how she treated the breaks, because they were always at school, but when they weren't and he realized that he had lived in the lap of luxury despite a very controlling grandfather, he had wondered how she handled a rundown farm with an out of control father. He had known that she had had it bad during the regular school days where she had to go home, but when he thought of spending multiple days all in a row with it he realized that it was a miracle that she was alive. He wondered if she saw it that way, but he figured that she did. He wondered what had filled her days. Had she cowered in a corner crying all alone? Had she run off and thought of never coming back? Had she tried to work her pain off by being with her beloved horses? He didn't know. He wanted to ask her, but he didn't want to remind her of those things. But being in a good house during the break and thinking of her staying with a family that was upset at each other, it probably reminded her of her dad, made him feel guilty.

And then there was Rin. She was like Lily. He had remembered her that first day. She had been really scared and upset about something, but then she had had a drastic change. It was almost like whatever she had been scared of had scared her into being bubbly. He was the only one who knew that she was secretly very afraid of something. She was only forcing herself to be so friendly and nice. If he said a certain thing, she seemed to get frightened. Especially in the chemistry classes. And the biology one. She seemed to not like talking about chemicals. When they talked about why you shouldn't inject them into yourself, she always rubbed her arms as if the side affects were affecting her then. Sometimes Takuma would tease her about being squeamish, but then she would look at him as if he were completely evil. He always had to wonder why she thought that way. It wasn't like they had actually been injected into her before. Most of them would cause death. Or at least some awful disease. And she was a vampire in any case. She could handle it.

He turned and looked out the window. They would be coming to the gates any minute now, and he couldn't wait.

When they finally arrived, Takuma jumped out of the car first and went up to Lily who was waiting, though she looked tired. He smiled at her and she smiled a little in return.

She looked really sleepy and nervous. She looked around like somebody was chasing her. He gave her a worried look and noticed that she was dressed in something other than old jeans and a worn out high school T-shirt with a jacket that was partway open, her own personal style from her small town. Instead she wore something a little more in style, though it was still like her old outfit. It was a newer pair of bleached jeans with a few holes and a long sleeved darker blue top with white stripes and a hood in back. She even had new shoes. They were gym shoes, but were blue like her top. And her red-brown hair was a little longer and worn in a different style. Instead of being loose, it was in two very long pigtails. She had put them over her shoulders and it went about mid-length, almost to her waist. They were amazed by how different she looked. It had only been about a week and a half. The only thing that they could tell was the same was that she hadn't gotten a tan. If it was possible, she seemed to be paler than before. It was getting colder here though, so they took it as something normal.

She greeted them, but didn't bow. She just smiled and waved. Everyone smiled at her, even Ruka. Ruka had actually missed the annoying human girl being with them, she made things interesting. As she passed her she whispered, "I'm glad to be back here." Lily was a little surprised, but she tried to not show it. Then Aidou came up to her and happily embraced her. Rin came bounding out to see them then too. She prodded Aidou off of Lily and told him to steer clear of her when she wasn't sure if he'd eaten yet. Takuma grinned and teased Lily on her fearful attitude, then he teased Aidou on his boisterous greeting. Kain smiled at all of this and simply told Lily hello. She blushed and nodded to him. Then Shiki and Rima came up, but they as usual didn't have much to say, but this time Shiki handed her a box of pocky and didn't take it back. That was his way of saying that he missed hearing from her. Then all of them went inside leaving her with Rin and Takuma.

He smiled and then told her, "I was thinking about both of you over break." He frowned a little in the next thought, "I thought that Rin was going to stay in Chicago until tonight."

"She and I came back early," Rin told him.

Lily tried to stop her from saying that, but it was too late. Rin had already spilled the beans. Lily shook her head. She had known that this would happen. That was why she hadn't wanted to tell her. After looking at the ground for awhile she looked at Takuma.

"You don't have to worry about me anymore," she told him. "I went to my dad's over the break, to check on everything, and it was fine. The farm's back."

He looked at her in disbelief. She sighed and then quickly took out a pen from her pocket, she always carried things that she could draw with. Nobody had ever seen her without a pencil, pen, or marker. Or a piece of paper. She took out a small notebook that she used to jot down notes on things she may want to illustrate later and tore a page out. She wrote something on it and then handed it to him.

"This website will prove it," she told him, "I shut it down about three years ago, but I got it back up and running when I went to check the farm back out. My dad's running everything now, including the website, I'm not sure how good he is with websites so I'll be doing some work on it too."

Takuma looked at it and then at her. He looked like he was in between happiness and sadness.

"This doesn't make much of a difference for making me worried, Lily-chan," he told her. "what if he hadn't been different? What if he had been violent? He could have killed you. And then it would be my fault for not telling anyone about it. Please think next time, Lily-chan."

With that he walked away. She looked after him and couldn't help feeling a little guilty. He couldn't have been that worried though. She had been safe and sound here. It wasn't like she had gotten hurt. He hadn't even known that she was gone. She glared at Rin, but Rin grinned a little back and shrugged.

"At least he's concerned about you," she shrugged.

Lily pushed past her and stalked back to the dorm.

"What?! You could have walked around me! There was room!" Rin yelled at her as she followed.

She kept complaining as she followed her all the way back to their room. When they got there they noticed that Aidou and Kain were going through their stuff. Lily walked in first and froze as she saw them.

"What are you doing?!" she asked.

They both looked up at her in surprise and guilt. Aidou stood right away and stammered something incoherently while Kain stood more slowly and rubbed his face with his hand. Lily stood there in defiance and waited for an answer.

"We were looking for your sketchbook, we wanted to see some pictures, but you never allow anyone to see them!" Aidou admitted.

Lily looked surprised, but then decided to let them see it. She went to the bag it should have been in, but realized that it was gone.

"It's gone," she muttered to herself, "I must have left it at Luke's. Dang."

She straitened and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She couldn't believe that she had lost her connection with her mom. Then after searching again, she turned back to them.

"It's not here," she told them. "I think I left it at my friends house. He'll probably send it to me later." she paused and then asked, "one of you didn't take, I'm guessing?"

They both shook their heads. They even held up their hands revealing nothing in them. She sighed and wiped her eyes again.

That sketchbook was everything to her. It was her connection to her mother. It had what she had been through in it. It had everything that she cared about in it and her darkest secrets. She had to have it back. She turned and dug out her laptop. They came up to her and were going to try to calm her down when they realized that she wasn't very upset. At least not physically.

"Where were you over the break?" Kain asked.

"I was in Sleepy Hollow," she told him.

"Oh, your little small town," Aidou told her teasingly.

"It's not that small," she told him with a slight blush. "you wouldn't last very long in the town though. Rumors spread like wildfire because there's nothing else to do. Everyone knows everything about everyone's business. If an outsider comes in, people will grab guns and prepare to run them out of town if they do one thing wrong."

Aidou went paler than normal at hearing that her town was like this. Lily chuckled at his expression.

"You're fun to tease," she laughed at him.

He felt like hitting her over the head at this because he was sick of being teased, but Kain stopped him as he grinned as well.

"Hanabusa, taking your frustration out on Lily here isn't going to end well," Kain told him.

Aidou grunted a little in reply, but then nodded. He patted Lily on the head. Then he and Kain left after telling her sorry over her lost sketchbook, although they didn't understand why it was a big deal.

Lily settled at her desk and then turned her laptop on. She first checked her Email and noticed that what she wanted to talk about with Luke was already there. He had found it and was going to send it as soon as possible. She sighed and smiled to herself. Then she turned onto her untraceable ID and began to show Rin some of the things that she had on the Lab. Including profiles for certain experiments.

The rest of that day, Rin and Lily planned who they should try to get in touch with first. And how. Both questions were hard. Both would mean sacrifice. But who was going to be sacrificed? They had no clue.

* * *

Well... there we go. I think that it's kind of silly and slightly erratic towards the end, but I'm trying to show that Lily's changing subconsciously. You'll see everyone's reactions to it in the next chapter. And Shawn will be coming to join the Academy. You'll soon understand why he's as annoying as he is. Hehe....

I'll try to make this a Kain/Lily, but if anyone thinks otherwise, please tell me. I can always ignore romance and make it a friendship-which is what I am currently writing. I haven't given much thought into how they'll get a real relationship going. (but I can make it work. I can-it's still an open sort of thing and I know I can make the story go on a little longer)

**Anyway... please review. And I still have the relationship poll on my profile page. If anyone goes there, there's also a new story idea. I'd love somebody (or more) to tell me what they think. I don't really know what it'll be about, so I'm open to opinions on what would make a good Shiki/OC story. Hehe... anyway... please review. I love to get reviews, even if they're a little critical. I actually like people to be critical. It helps me to write better, and I want to write better!**

**_once a week updating--my new rule. It will be completely random other than that._**


	21. Changes

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Twenty-One: Changes

I sat in class, taking as many detailed notes as I could. Luke hadn't gotten me caught up for nothing, I had to keep going at this pace, even if the lesson were completely boring and senseless.

Beside me Rin was taking a nap again. She didn't care for Calculus, she found it useless and in general: boring. I didn't though. I found it kind of fun, but I didn't like how the teacher droned on and on about every little number. I could probably explain it much better. But of course that was probably not true.

Takuma was in front of Rin and me. He was taking notes also, but at a slower pace than me. He could probably memorize them when he heard them once. It made me a little jealous, but I knew that I didn't want any of what they had. I was satisfied with my life. And I didn't want to just ask him for what he knew about the math equations, I wanted to be able to help myself through the class. I wanted to show them, _all_ of them, that I could handle their high curriculum too. And that it wouldn't break me down. And trust me, I had a lot to redeem about myself school wise.

I sighed and finally the bell rang. I put my pencil down and put my head down onto my hands. I was so tired. And it was only the second day after we had all come back. The Day Class wasn't back yet, they would be arriving tomorrow though. We were just taking early classes. Takuma hadn't thought that I could handle having class right after I got back, none of them really did, but now I seemed to be proving them wrong. Maybe.

Takuma still was a little upset at me over my leaving without telling him, but he was still friendly with me. He also apologized since he realized that I would want to mend the relationship and then come back here with every intention to focus on my studies one-hundred percent. He seemed to realize that I had wanted for once in my life to know that I didn't have to hide everything. He still didn't support that I go into a risky situation like that again though. I couldn't promise anything, but I didn't tell him that.

I didn't have my sketchbook. Luke hadn't sent it yet, but he promised to by the end of the week. Everyone made comments on how I didn't draw very much anymore and finally I explained that I had left my sketchbook at my friends in Chicago. They were surprised that I had left and stayed at some house in a city that they were sure I had never been to, but then I told them that Chicago was really close to where I lived and staying at a friends house when they were a boy would get me mentioned in a church service on Sunday, they understood why I couldn't stay in my 'small town'. Although at first they hadn't believed what I said, I was completely serious.

I doodled on scratch paper and waited for the next lesson to begin. Chemistry. And there was an experiment today. I really didn't want to be here. I could tell that Rin didn't either. She kept rubbing her arms where they use to stick needles. I knocked her hands down discreetly. She nearly glared at me for acting so suddenly. I shrugged.

Takuma turned in his seat to look at us. He smiled broadly, but then saw that Rin looked kind of scared.

"What's wrong?" he asked her. His eyes showed concern and I knew that he really cared about my sister. Although he would show concern for anybody.

"Nothing, I just dislike chemistry. A lot," she told him.

I wanted to suddenly slip away, but they didn't seem to notice me anyway, and I didn't know where I was going to go, so I stayed. Maybe tomorrow they could sit next to each other and I could sit with Shiki and Rima. They sat a couple of rows above us. I would sit with Aidou and Kain, but they tended to tease me a lot, and that was the last thing that I needed from them when I was trying to work hard. Although they were very nice to me. And I thought Kain kind of liked me. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. It made me feel nervous around him for some reason.

"Please sit down, class," the voice of our teacher announced as he came in.

Everyone glanced around, but saw that everyone of us was seated already. Some students chuckled, but then the teacher glared at all of them and they stopped abruptly. He resumed his position in front of the class and began to go on about the experiment of the day.

He passed out the materials and then Takuma turned around so that we could work as a group. I couldn't pay attention to this. The only one doing any work was Takuma. He kept glancing at me worriedly. Finally he sighed and put down the dropper to ask me something.

"What is it, Lily-chan? I thought you liked chemistry," he told me.

He looked at me in complete worry. Then he offered me the dropper so that I could do the experiment, but I shook my head. He sighed again, and continued the experiment although he was confused. I watched him do the experiment in detachment. Then I saw the liquid faintly as it turned from blue to a blue greenish color. I felt my eyes getting scratchy and rubbed at them, but they only seemed to get worse. Takuma was now watching the experiment closely so that he could take notes, but he noticed when my eyes started to turn pink.

"Lily-chan?" he asked, but it was too late.

Everything was getting blurry, and his voice was faint. Then I felt myself slowly falling off the edge of the seat. I only faintly heard the shuffling of feet to come get me before I completely passed out.

_**** The Next Day ****_

I woke up in a strange room. I rubbed at my eyes to get my vision to clear and then saw that I was in the infirmary. But why was I here? Then I remembered what had happened.

_My eyes got really scratchy and itchy, but no matter how much I rubbed at them they just wouldn't stop. And then their vision started to get blurry to the point where I couldn't see. Then I felt like my hearing was disappearing as well and I no longer was alert to my surroundings. Then finally, because my airway felt restricted, and I couldn't do anything, I fainted. _

_I fell to the ground and the last thing I heard was the shuffling of feet. _

I shook my head and tried not to remember the feeling of having an allergic reaction.

I glanced at a clock on the wall and saw that it was only two in the morning. Err, afternoon. This vampire talk was getting to me. The Day Class would be arriving back to the school any minute. I had to get out of here!

The Day Class girls were going to have my head on a stake if they knew I was here. Why? Because I got myself moved to the Night Class, and they were jealous. It wouldn't matter on a normal basis since I was friends with most of their 'idols', but if I was alone... that was a whole different story. They would probably tear me limb from limb.

I swung my legs out over the side of the bed, but didn't really feel like I had any energy to do anything further. I let myself fall backwards back onto the bed. I just lay there. I seriously had no energy. I looked at the ceiling trying to make the cracks in it become pictures of animals and places. I don't know how long I lay there before I heard a voice in the hall. Then I remembered that the Day Class girls would be coming in and I was still in danger of a couple of pranks or tackles while I wasn't feeling my best. I forced myself back up and with more determination than anything, got myself up.

I saw that my spare uniform was beside my bedside and a note placed on it. I picked up the note and read it.

_We all hope that you feel better soon, but we have to go to bed. Besides, you wouldn't want us to watch over you anyway, you'd hate us forever. Next time, tell us when you're allergic. Silly girl... Night Class_

They were all worried about me? I could see Rin being hysterical, but the whole Night Class? They really were use to me.

I picked up the uniform and then quickly changed into it. I would drop the old wrinkly one off at the laundry room where the uniforms were washed by the maids. Then I would ran out of the school at the speed of light.

I saw Yuuki showing a new boy around the school. I watched for a few moments wondering if I should go and introduce myself and help her since I was up, but then I changed my mind when I saw the way the few Day Class girls were looking at me. And then something else.

The boy was Shawn.

* * *

It's short. But I didn't feel like writing much this time. (I don't know why. I'm really into _A Dangerous Assumption_ right now-I know where this will go so it's kind of boring to write) Anyway, Shawn is coming to the school. You'll see Lily's reaction in the next chapter when it's updated.

I know that her allergic reaction came out of nowhere, but I had to have her see Shawn somehow and that shows that she is definitely human. I feel bad for her, I hate allergic reactions. (allergic to cats...)

To the person who hates Shawn: be patient! It will be rewarded! There are certain reasons (that I can't tell) why he must go to the school! -- people are probably already figuring it out though... not that that's a bad thing. Also, thank you for your review on my new story. That was nice. I'll do my best on it.

**Please review! It only takes a minute! Just tell me what you like/dislike and I'll try to make something work out. Poll on profile, still. Thank you! (in advance)**


	22. Confusion

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, or will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody takes my characters or ideas._

_Not my Time  
__A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Twenty-Two: Confusion

I am sorry to say that the instant I saw him, I ran full blast to the dormitory. Since it was daytime, everyone was sleeping. On a normal basis I would have taken into mind how odd everything in this dorm was for me, sleeping in the day and studying at night, but not today. Today I was glad for my 'misfortune' of having been the experimental Day Class transferee.

I ran straight to my room, but ended up running smack into the door because for once in her life Rin had remembered to lock it.

I fell back and rubbed my forehead. Ouch... that hurt. Why had she chosen today of all days to lock our door? I didn't even have a key! And she was hard to wake up!

I would have tried, but I didn't want to wake everyone up with a big scene and not have a room to go to for refuge when everyone, except Rin who I was trying to wake up, came outside to see what the commotion was about. I groaned and sat against the wall beside our room, leaning my head back on it so that I could look at the ceiling. I don't know how long I stayed like that, but it probably wasn't very long because I didn't exactly find the position comfortable. In any case, the sound of footsteps drew me out of the detached state that I was in.

I looked up and saw both Aidou and Kain going to their room. They were opening the door when Kain glanced towards mine and Rin's room. He saw me on the floor and gave me a slightly confused look, then tapped his cousin on the shoulder. Aidou looked at Kain in slight surprise as Kain pointed to me on the floor. He looked over to me and gave me his own look of confusion, followed by him retaining his normal continence of self confidence.

I gave a small wave, and they walked over to where I was still sitting.

"Hey, Lily, why aren't you in your room?" Kain asked. "you shouldn't stay in the hallways for too long. You don't know what might happen."

"The door's locked," I told him.

"You don't have the key?" Aidou asked me, at first I thought that he was just figuring that out and then I realized that he teasing me again. Him being the _genius_ that he is.

I blushed a little, in embarrassment or anger I'm not really sure, maybe both, in any case I blushed and shook my head a little. As I did, I wondered where they had been coming in from. It wasn't usual for Aidou to want to leave the dorms during the daytime, sometimes we had a difficult time getting him up at twilight to get himself to class with all of us. And leaving was against school rules. Not that they weren't the type of students to break rules. Well, Kain didn't _break_ the rules, he got caught with Aidou when _he _broke the rules.

"You should go outside then," Kain suggested, "it's... bearable right now."

I wanted to laugh a little at the way that he mentioned the weather outside. It was so vampire like.

"I already was outside," I told them, "I had to walk from the infirmary to here. Besides, how would you know?"

They looked at each other like they didn't want to tell me. Either that or they were surprised that I didn't already know. Then they slowly turned back to me.

"We were hunting a Level E," Aidou told me, "sometimes the council asks one of the Night Class students to do that."

I didn't want to seem like a ninny, but I wanted to know more. I really did. I just didn't want to admit it. I shrugged in reply. They looked at each other again, this time both held a look of smugness, like they could see through my façade. I sighed, but refused to ask the question that I was dying to know the answer to. I probably didn't really want to know anyway. Curiosity did kill the cat. Look what it had done to me with all of those years of staying with my father. I didn't really know if that was distinctly 'curiosity' but it was definitely something along the lines of 'lunacy' and 'pipe dream'. No, I probably didn't want to know, but I would never stop thinking about it if I didn't, whether it be bad or not.

"So, you want to know why?" Aidou asked, "Yuuki gets all hysterical when we do this kind of thing, but we never tell her anything. However you're a different story. I'll level with you, maybe."

I shrugged again. "I don't really care," I told him. "that's your business, not mine."

"You want to know," Aidou insisted, although I could tell that he thought that his teasing was going to get him nowhere now, "and it is your business, because you're a prefect even if you're in the Night Class with us."

"Do you want to tell me?" I asked him in false surprise. "because if you do, then go ahead."

I felt like I had effectively trapped him at his own game, but at the same time I figured that I had trapped myself. My being open to him telling me was probably evidence enough that I wanted to know, but he was probably bored with the joke at this point, and he tended to get impatient at this point as well.

"Fine, I want you to know for real anyway," he muttered. "do you even know what a Level E is?"

"Uh, I think so," I replied.

"In case you don't, it's an ex-human vampire that has gone berserk," he explained. "as nobles we control them, sometimes they get away though and attack people in towns. We're nobles, the level just below purebloods, which is the almighty group that started the race of vampires, or just about anyway. If we bit you, not that we would that would anger Kaname as well as make the Chairman go goofy on us, you wouldn't turn into a vampire. Only people like Kaname can turn you into a vampire."

I wasn't really surprised by most of this information. I had been told in one way or another throughout my stay in Cross Academy, and what I wasn't exactly told, I had figured out on my own. I gave them a look that just about told them that I had figured so much on my own. In return they didn't look all that surprised, they probably figured themselves that I had since I had been in their class for so long now.

"We figured that you knew," Kain told me, "but we want to be sure, since you seem very nervous about something recently."

I had known that I was easy to see through, but I hadn't wanted to be found out. I wished that Rin would open the door and I could get away, but that was an impossibility, especially at this point where if I ran away, they would know that something was up. They would assume that it was either them, or something that I didn't wish for them to know. I didn't want them to feel like I didn't trust them or anything, but I had been warned by Luke and Rin not to tell. It was for everyones safety as well as our own.

"It's nothing," I told them.

A maid was coming down the hall, she carried a book with her and I recognized it, even at a distance, as my sketchbook.

I stood up and in half delight waited for her to be right next to us.

"Here you go, Lily," she told me as she handed it to me. She looked passed me at my door and asked, "do you need a key? We have a spare right here."

Out of nowhere a key for my room appeared. It was in the hand of one of her creepy looking hooded companions. I felt a little bit of an unusual aura coming off of him and was relieved when Kain answered for me, "yes, she does, but she's already in her uniform and her roommate's asleep. We'll take her to our room, it's alright."

The maid nodded and smiled at us as she left, taking her creepy assistants with her. We all sighed in relief when they were out of sight and I just had to think to myself about how even vampires had fears. Well, not fears, but dislikes.

Then I was aware that Aidou was taking my sketchbook from my hands. I looked up at him in surprise and tried to grab it back, but he held it up by his head and I, like the time before exams, couldn't reach it. I kept trying to keep my dignity and grab it at the same time, both were a losing battle.

"Come on! Give it back! This isn't far!" I exclaimed.

Why did I have to be so short?! He wasn't much taller than I was, but when he moved it to be held high above his head by his long arms it proved to be an impossibility to reach my sketchbook. Finally I gave up and he chuckled at me.

"That was fun, wasn't it, Lily-chan?" he asked me as he chuckled.

I wanted to kick him in the shin, but it was a good thing that I didn't because the rest of the Night Class was beginning to file out of their rooms to congregate for class. When Takuma saw that Aidou had swindled my sketchbook away, he approached us.

"Having trouble, Lily-chan?" he asked me, "you ought to try to grow more."

He laughed a little at me too, making me a little embarrassed and a little upset. Though I wasn't as upset at him as I was at Aidou who was the cause of all of this.

Takuma took my sketchbook back from Aidou and then told them to go get ready for class, since it would begin in a half hour. I was surprised when he headed back to his room without returning it though. I ran after him.

"Hey! I want that back!" I told him.

He turned on me rather abruptly, and I stopped as quickly as I could, still nearly running into him. He reached out and moved me back a little so that we both had breathing space. I blushed a little, but stepped back.

"Will you give it back?" I asked him a little timidly. "you already know about me."

I wondered what he wanted. He knew about what I'd been through already. I had proven to him that everything was okay. Why was he taking my sketchbook away from me right when I got it back? I could understand Aidou taking it because he liked to tease me on my height as well as what I drew once in a while.

"I want to speak to you in my room. I went to the website you gave me yesterday and there is no way that it's the website for your farm," he told me.

I looked at him in confusion. I was certain that I had given him the correct one.

"Let me look at it," I muttered shouldering past him and going into his room.

Shiki was up and putting his vest on, he looked up when I came in followed closely by Takuma. He studied me for a moment before nodding at me as a sign of welcome.

Their room was messy, there were clothes all over the place. It was like a deathtrap just getting to the computer. Like in the room that Aidou and Kain shared, the front was like a sitting area while the back had the two beds. Each had privacy curtains and was done up with blue sheets and comforters. Again I had to notice the major difference between the Day Class dorms and the Night Class dorms. Money really could get you what you wanted.

Once I was at the computer, and a nice one too, I sat down and logged on. I figured out their password easily enough. After all, I had hacked the Lab's computer and that was a federal computer. Anything else was a piece of cake.

"Hey, I'll need to log you in," Takuma told me when he made it through the war-zone he called his room to his little study area. Then he saw that I was already in and he asked, "did I leave it logged on? I thought that I shut it down last night..."

"You did," I admitted. "but you took too long back there so I logged in for you."

I didn't turn to see his face, but I knew that it was probably in between shock and frustration. I could feel a lecture about hacking coming on.

"You have a lot to explain about how you figured that out, but I'm more concerned about you and your farm right now," he replied.

I glanced back a little and saw that he was rubbing his head with one hand. I tried not to feel so guilty because he was the one who was dragging me into his room to prove something that I had known since the beginning and that he was wrong about. Shiki came up next to Takuma and I felt like groaning over this situation. Two people would witness some embarrassing and yet hilarious videos and pictures of me with my horses. It wasn't so bad if it was just Takuma or Rin. Even Aidou was alright to have around while watching them, but it wasn't so much fun when you had the stoic people like Shiki, Kaname, Rima, and Kain all laughing at something you had done. At least it was only one of them though.

"Did you already look at the page I gave to you?" I asked Takuma.

"Yeah, Shiki wasn't here though," Takuma answered easily. "I don't think that you gave me the correct one. Maybe you misspelled it or something."

I shook my head and typed in the address, the one I had given him. Behind me I could feel Takuma's frustration reaching a boiling point.

"No! Lily, I know that you are trying to prove something about your house, but you can't be related to those people! They've been training horses for years, even vampires have sent their horses to be trained by them because their daughter nearly works a miracle with a horse!" he told me in deep frustration.

I gasped and nearly had a heart attack. I had been training horses that had belonged to _vampires_ all those years? How had I not figured that out? How had I not figured _any _of this out? No wonder all those people were asking questions about why I was hurt! They could smell my blood probably from miles away! That was a creepy thought...

"Thank you for the compliment," I muttered to him.

I couldn't focus anymore. The thought about training horses belonging to vampires kept coming back to me. How could I not notice anything different about them? And how come I could get their horses to trust them? I had seen how White Lily acted around Takuma, and I had to say that he had a far nicer aura than all of the other vampires. Was it... me? How did I convince horses that everything was alright if I told them so? I couldn't figure it out.

"You... really trained all of those horses, didn't you?" Takuma asked me although he already knew the answer. "you trained them when you didn't know about vampires and when you were being beaten by your father. I only have one question. How did you do it?"

I put my head in one of my hands and thought, but I couldn't come up with an answer. "I don't know," I admitted. "I just always... understood the horse..."

I blushed a little. I hadn't admitted that to anyone before. I mean, what kind of person _talks_ to a horse and then thinks that they can understand them? Or that the horse understands them? But that's what I would always do. I liked to get the owner out so that they could see the horses progress and so that the horse could get use to them as well. I never had thought that the nervousness was caused by anything more than an unusual rider though! I'm oblivious... it's proven... I'll have to apologize to Rin...

"What do you mean?" Takuma asked.

Before I could answer we heard a yell, "are you guys coming to class or not? We have to leave now!"

Kaname was a little upset because we had held the class up for ten extra minutes, and the girls were now going crazy. Or crazier.

I logged off and groaned when I realized that the boys had already run half way across the room.

"Don't come to class tonight, Lily-chan, the Chairman wants you for something else. He said that it was important!" Takuma called back to me.

I started to head back when I noticed that Takuma had taken my sketchbook with him as well as his textbook. That jerk... taking it and getting me into his room to prove something that I already had told him and then not giving it back to me...

I sighed and dodged a couple of designer shirts that were left on the floor to get all wrinkly and dirty. Really, they were rich kids. They should take better care of their stuff. I wondered how they would be able to live if they didn't have all of this money. The thought was kind of amusing. Especially with Aidou. I pictured him complaining about his bed linens. I would have to remind myself to invite him cordially to my farm one of these days. That would be great revenge...

I grinned a little as I went to my room to get ready. I sure wasn't going to be wearing my uniform if I was going to see the Chairman.

When I got there I prayed that the door was unlocked now so that I wouldn't have to find one of the maids or one of her assistants. However, luck was now with me because the door was left unlocked by a late Rin.

I stepped in and changed to a pair of bleached jeans with some large holes in the knees and some smaller ones in various places and a top that was short sleeved and just an ordinary T-shirt with the White Sox logo on it. Then I put on a pair of gym shoes that were white with some wing design on the side. I left my hair loose because I didn't feel like doing anything with it once I was ready. As I was running out the door I decided to attach my Rod onto my belt just in case, since it was getting late.

I walked out onto the campus and headed towards the main building where the Chairman would be waiting. As I walked there I wondered what he wanted to see me for. A lot had happened today, and I wondered if I had done something wrong or if it was about my allergic reaction in the chemistry class. I felt kind of bad about not going to class. This didn't feel normal. The Chairman shouldn't call me when I should be learning and watching the Night Class. Maybe he just wanted to check up on them, but if it was for that than why didn't he just ask Kaname? It must be about Shawn being the new kid. When they found out that we were from the same town he must have gone berserk on me. He was probably setting us all up for dinner. I groaned. I had only avoided for so long.

I heard a bush rustle behind me and turned around quickly. I was already reaching for my Rod as I called out 'who's there?'

Nobody answered, I started to edge a little closer to the bushes and put my Rod down. I figured that it was just some pesky girls trying to sneak into the school to see their crush. I had to say that I felt a little bad for them since they would never be able to begin to understand why they couldn't be around them.

"Hey, come out," I told them while reaching in.

I planned to find one's collar and drag them out. It was a little mean, but this was my job. I had to keep them away from the vampires. I couldn't find anyone in the bush and began to think that it was just my head playing games with me.

I sighed and muttered to myself, "I'm going crazy..."

I picked up my Rod and turned around only when I did somebody grabbed me from behind.

"Hey!" I cried in surprise.

The person, a boy by what I could tell, grabbed my Rod away and then took off into the woods. Almost immediately I took off after him, running and screaming through the forest.

"I.... am... going... to kill... that... kid!" I panted as I ran as fast as I could.

I was getting torn apart by brambles and thorns and an occasional stick or two. Suddenly the forest seemed even thicker than I had originally thought. I wondered if I was even going in the direction that the boy went. I began to slow down.

I glanced around. Only trees seemed to surround me. I wasn't sure which direction I had even come from.

Then I realized another thing. The boy wasn't a vampire. He could hold my Rod. He must be in the Day Class.

"Little twerps and their dares! Why didn't Zero stop them?" I wondered out loud. "at least I _had _my Rod..."

I began to walk through the trees, checking around constantly. All I could see were trees.

A little while later I was beginning to get worried that I was actually lost. Stupid boys. Didn't they know when their dares had gone too far? I was practically stuck in a forest! Finally I gave up a little and sat at the bottom of a tree to rest. Maybe Zero or Yuuki would come find me.

I looked at the cuts that I had gotten on my arms. They were nothing major, although I didn't have my first aid kit to grab a band aid for any of them. I was still aware that I was in danger from a vampire attack while trying to find the idiot who took my Rod. Did they not realize that I would have a weapon for a reason? I don't understand boys... they're just like the fangirls if you give them the chance...

After a short break I began to wander in the forest again. Nobody was coming to help me. Neither vampire nor human. The humans because they couldn't smell my blood or couldn't track in the forest, and the vampires because they were use to a human in their class now. They were use to what I smelled like, and they knew the consequences for going after me. In a case such as this it was a bad thing. I just wanted somebody to get me out of here so that I wouldn't get my adoptive father all hysterical!

Then, out of nowhere, something whacked into my face and I fell back. The object had hit my forehead, and I rubbed it with my hand in an attempt to get the pain to subside and then I looked up.

A boy was standing in front of me holding my Rod like I would have to defend myself.

"Lily Waters, it's time for you to come back to us," he told me. His voice was dark and menacing and it made me shiver a little in fright. Then he came into the moonlight a little and I recognized him.

"Oh my gosh..." I groaned as I saw his face, "why you?"

**In the Night Class **

Takuma was looking over Lily's sketchbook again. He, of course, already knew about everything, but he wasn't interested in that now. He was interested in how she trained. What had made her technique so different that it made a creature trust a vampire? There was something different about Lily, that was for sure.

Despite what he wanted to believe, he was beginning to think that Aidou and Kain had been right closer to the beginning of her stay in the Academy. They weren't right about _everything_, but maybe Lily wasn't quite the typical human. Her aura had always seemed so much lighter than a humans, more... flexible? He wasn't sure what it was, but it was different. He had always thought that it was because she was hurt and so she had a more breakable spirit, but then he didn't know why he had thought that because it wasn't true. She was always very strong willed, and she knew what she was doing and wouldn't back down if she knew she was right. Her aura was more like, it shifted depending on who she was around. He didn't understand it.

"Ichijou-san, you look frustrated," Shiki commented from beside him.

He was sitting with Shiki and Rima tonight, Rin was asleep on her own desk because Lily wasn't here to actually keep her awake. Takuma liked her, but sometimes he got the feeling that he made her nervous. He was trying to leave her alone for the night. She was asleep anyway, he couldn't just wake her up.

"I am a little," he admitted, "I just want to know how she trained horses for vampires and not only didn't notice it, but didn't do anything differently!"

Before he could continue with his dilemma, he noticed that Yuuki was standing in the doorway to the classroom.

"Hello, Kaname-senpai," she greeted Kaname respectfully and bowed before she continued, "is Lily-chan here? We wanted to speak with her and Shawn, the new student, but neither one of them has come. We were wondering if she came here instead."

Takuma became immediately alert after hearing this. He had told her not to come to class and she hadn't! He stood up at the outside of his desk and watched them as they talked about where she might be. They stopped when they heard a door slam.

Kain was gone.

The night had immediately gone from normal to disturbed. And the scent of blood slowly made its way into the classroom.

* * *

I am aware that there is a lot going on in this chapter, but I wanted to get all of that information out so that I could get to the next conflict. This story is killing me!

New rule about updates. I am officially working on three stories at once, so I'm going to update the ones that get the most reviews first. That means that I'll be working on A Dangerous Assumption for a while before the next chapter of this comes out.

**Please review! Like the note above says, I'm updating my stories based on the number of reviews. So, you have to review! Even if it's a little critical. That's alright. **


	23. Confrontation

_Disclaimer: Vampire Knight does not, has not, and will not ever belong to me. I only ask that nobody take my characters or ideas. _

_Not my Time_

_A Vampire Knight Fanfiction_

Chapter Twenty-Three: Confrontation

**Lily's Point of View **_(first person)_

I stared at Shawn, who was leering at me in a dark, dangerous way. How could this be him? How could he be the one behind all of the Lab's crazy antics? He was the boy who had a crush on me since … Or at least, I'd thought he was.

"How could you?" I asked, my voice filled with despair and disbelief.

His eyes glared at me, angered at my questioning. "Well," he humphed. "If you must know, I did it because it was the only thing keeping my life interesting in that dull little town. And I got to toy with you, which was definitely more fun than I'd originally thought." He gave me a cruel hearted grin.

Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I could feel the silvery, silk-like substance as the first few no longer could hang onto my eyelids and slid down my cheeks and chin. I didn't make a sound; years of practice had taught me not to. In a few moments my eyelashes became soaked and, try as I might, I could find no voice – or words – to counter Shawn's cruel actions.

"See? This is what I mean. It's too much fun making you upset," Shawn chuckled at my reaction. His eyes danced; his grin widened.

I knew that I should force myself to be strong; to look into his eyes and show him that his cruelty didn't affect me. But I couldn't. Enough was enough. I was tired of being strong. I'd been strong for so long and things were happening too fast. First with the abuse, then with Cross Academy and its vampires, then with my father and his renewal, then with Luke and his news and lessons, and now with … I couldn't handle any more!

As he became more and more enthused by my tears and frustration, the weaker I became.

"No," I moaned, falling to my knees as I desperately clenched my right hand at my chest. "No, no this cannot be happening … How can I be betrayed by someone so close to me? Next I know my mother and Mandi were in on this Lab thing, too!"

A dark chuckle from Shawn resounded above me. It startled me, forcing my attention on Shawn once more. For an instant the tears stopped in my surprise; my gasps paused; my eyebrows rose into a question.

Shawn smiled at me mockingly. The smile crinkled his eyes and made him appear eviler than I'd ever imagined.

"You never thought," he began then paused slightly before continuing. "Your sister didn't want you to just be …" He pretended to search for the correct word. "Gone? Punished? Abandoned?" Each word instilled a deep emotional betrayal in my heart, and I couldn't help but glance down at the ground again. "Yes, your sister was in on 'this Lab thing'." He paused again. Then suddenly he added, "And so was your mother."

My head shot back up to look at him.

"My mother?" I could hear my voice demanding an explanation; despite my tear-stained state, my voice was strong and full. Maybe there was still some strength in me afterall. "What do you know about my mother?"

"I know she was what gave you hope. I know that she left you barely one thing and you remember her more than any other person. But of course, she spent the most time with you," Shawn replied. "She might have remembered you, but she forgot everyone else!"

"That's not true my mother loved everyone she'd ever met! She treated everyone with the same kindness as she did me!" I countered.

"She forgot your own sister! While she gave attention to you, she neglected to give attention to your poor sister! She tried so many times to gain the attention of your parents, but you always stole everything away from her! When she realized that she'd never receive any attention from your mother, she thought maybe her father would give her the needed attention, but she found out that your father was just as busy with you as her mother! How could you have not noticed it?" His face began turning red the more he attempted to make me understand my mother's faults.

"But how does this have anything to do with the Lab?" I asked suddenly, not wanting to hear him insult my mother anymore.

"Ahh … Yes, the Lab …" Shawn sighed, looking down at me thoughtfully. "Your mother, believe it or not, used to be very influential in the dealings of the Lab. She personally oversaw the experiments done on your sister Nasrin – her own daughter. She would do anything for that place. Except give you up when the time first came. She refused, and she gave you a potion that instilled in you the power to communicate and associate with creatures outside the human realm. Because of this, more than one group of creatures is willing to fight for your survival and well-being." He chuckled darkly. "Of course the Lab had to punish someone for this act, but of course they couldn't easily kill the valuable test subject. That left but one choice: Your mother. A trivial loss since we would be one obstacle shorter in reaching you."

"Then how come you didn't just take me then?" I demanded, wondering if I could have avoided the suffering done to me at my father's hands if they'd taken me right away.

"We wanted to wait and see what happened between you and the creatures around you, as well as how you managed with that deranged excuse of a father," Shawn explained tersely.

I wanted to defend my father. I wanted to tell Shawn that my father was not deranged - that he'd never been deranged, but something stopped me from proclaiming my father's innocence. Afterall, he had hurt me all those past years. He _had _neglected to take care of me and _had _practically viewed me as an intruder in his home. It was only recently that he'd become … normal again.

"So," I began, my body felt numb from the mind-addling truth. I wasn't completely certain of what to say. I was aware that I _should _say something, but my mind was strangely blank. I needed to say something that would allow him to realize that I couldn't be taken away, at least not right now. I needed to get out of this forest and back to the Moon Dorm or the school building. I didn't want to be an experiment!

Then, suddenly something Luke had told me came rushing back. _'They can't touch you as long as you're with the vampires.'_

"But you can't take me now," I reminded Shawn. "Because they, the vampires, are out here looking for me."

I noticed that Shawn tensed when I mentioned the word "vampires". It was as if he'd really almost forgotten exactly where we were. He quickly looked around him, making sure that we were still alone.

"Yes, that's right," he admitted. He thought a moment, then told me in a threatening voice, "But I have my ways of changing things. I can find a legitimate way to get you out of this school and back to the Lab."

Though I was frightened, I forced my fear down as I glared at him and growled, "Well, you better get to work on it then."

He grinned at me, obviously finding my sudden strength amusing. "Yes, I should," he called back as he walked to the edge of the forest. He looked down at the Rod in his hand. "Oh, and this is yours, Lily-chan. You know, you really ought to be more careful with it." He tossed it back over his shoulder carelessly as he disappeared.

I stared at the place where he'd stood. I stared at the Rod he'd so carelessly tossed.

I was still lost, but at least Shawn wasn't chasing me anymore. At least I was not in danger for the time being.

"Oh, but what am I to do?" I cried, feeling desperately alone and useless and betrayed. I sank to the ground and wept.

**The Night Class' Point of View **_(third person)_

After Lily vanished and Kain ran out of the classroom, it was difficult to get the Night Class to gain their focus back on their studies, but somehow they did. It must have been because they all revered Kaname-sama and when he told them to forget what was occurring, they just … did.

Rin wasn't asleep anymore. She had her head in her hands and her eyes peered toward the dense forest surrounding Cross Academy.

_Come on, Lily,_ she thought to herself. _You have to be all right. _

At first when Lily had disappeared, she'd thought Lily would be back within ten minutes since Kain was out looking for her. But then she'd decided to give him ten minutes more, then twenty, and now an hour. Lily had disappeared over an hour ago, and the smell of blood – though lessened – still lingered throughout the school. She knew that every vampire around her could smell it, yet somehow they sat in the classroom like statues, diligently working on completing their lessons.

"Where could she possibly have gotten off to?" Rin heard Takuma question just behind her. His worry must have overflowed because his question wasn't asked to a specific person.

"Ichijou-san," Shiki whispered in reply. "She's sure to be all right. She's taken care of herself before."

_Yeah, but there was never this much intrigue surrounding her then, _Ichijou thought, looking down as he realized there was nothing he could do about the situation.

Rin was so distracted by her worry over Lily that she didn't realize that she'd heard Ichijou's thought in her own head. On a normal day she would have been enthusiastic over her triumph of reading a vampire's mind; she would have leaned over to Lily, maybe clutching her arm as she laughed about how she'd finally read another being's mind without even thinking about it. But that day wasn't normal and everything was so tense that there was nothing pleasing about the revelation. Instead Rin found herself thinking about the words she'd heard. _There was never this much intrigue surrounding her then..._ How untrue... Intrigue had always surrounded Lily. Only she and nobody else had known it.

"Nasrin Gates!" The teacher's booming voice startled her so much that she jumped a few feet into the air. "I would appreciate it if you would pay attention to my lesson. Even when you're awake you don't listen to what I'm saying..."

"My apologies," Rin apologized softly as she bowed her head as if she were ashamed, even though she wasn't. _I have bigger problems than your stupid lesson... If only you knew. _

What if this was it? What if they took Lily away from her forever? What if they were tricking her into coming with them to the Lab? What if Lily was trying to trade herself to end Rin's own suffering?

"Don't do it, Lily..." Rin found herself whispering aloud. "It's a trap... Don't believe what they offer..."

Toward the end of her rambling thoughts she realized that others might have heard her fears and secrets, and she couldn't stop her eyes from going wide and her hand from reaching up to cover her mouth to halt all further mutterings of nonsense. She had only whispered, but with their keen sense of hearing, her words would have been easy for a vampire to detect. She couldn't believe how foolish and senseless she'd been to have allowed her thoughts to tumble out into the open.

It was around this time that a break was called and Takuma leaned across his desk to gain her attention. Rin tried to convince herself that he hadn't overheard her mumbling, but his serious and intense gaze convinced her that he had.

"Do you know where Lily-chan might be?" he asked, his eyes were lit with traces of anger and frustration as if he believed she could have located Lily herself hours ago.

"No! Not a clue! I'm just so worried! What if she was tricked into going into the woods and someone hurt her?" Rin replied. "It was probably one of those stupid fangirls and a few of her cohorts. They're so jealous of Lily, and I can just imagine them doing something senseless like this."

Although the theory was not completely implausible, both Rin and Takuma knew that something darker was taking place in the dense forest surrounding the school. Even if it had been fangirls bent on revenge, how could Lily have wandered so far away from the school that she could no longer be found?

**Kain's Point of View **_(third person) _

_Why would Lily have run so far into the woods? What could have possessed her to do such a senseless thing?_ Kain found himself wondering as he carefully navigated a large tree root in the middle of the forest. He had been searching for a while now, following the lingering scent of Lily's blood in order to do so. At first he had expected to find her only a little ways into the woods since she'd never gone into them far, probably fearful of becoming lost in the wilderness of overgrown trees. It had surprised him when he had found himself walking deeper and deeper into the woods, then he'd begun to worry because Lily's scent was becoming weaker the farther he walked.

"Lily-chan!" he called out for the hundredth time that night. "Where are you? Answer me if you can hear me!"

Although he didn't wish to admit it, frustration was beginning to get to him and it was all Kain could do to not become panicked by the lack of Lily's scent or her disturbing silence. And just when he thought he would never find her, a sound very close by caught his attention.

At first Kain thought it was Lily, and in his excitement he began running toward it, only remembering to approach with caution at the last moment when he finally realized the voice was a boy's.

Despair filled his heart suddenly at first, but then an idea came over him. Striding closer to the boy's location, Kain decided to ask if he knew anything about Lily's location. However, he realized that the boy was speaking eagerly into a phone. He paused, wondering what information could be so privileged that it could only be spoken of in the middle of the woods.

"Yes, I located the girl," the boy was saying. The way he said 'girl' was more of a snarl than a statement and made Kain's skin crawl in anger at how miserably the boy must treat the person he was speaking about. "But getting her out of this school will not be as easy as you think. We're going to have to make her willing to leave so that the vampires will not come after her or suspect what we're doing," the boy continued. "She cares deeply for her sister, but I fear that she won't believe that we're willing to let the one go in return for her. However, if she were to believe that something had happened to her father she might be too worried and flustered to really think things through. It's strange... after years of abuse from that man, she still rushes to his side whenever she believes something's wrong... How naïve." The boy laughed cruelly. "Don't worry. We'll get her somehow."

The boy hung up, brushed back his messy brown hair, and began walking back toward Cross Academy. Kain noticed that he looked as if he had just taken a run through the woods – as if chasing something or someone. The idea flashed through his mind that this boy had been the reason that Lily had gone so deep into the woods, and Kain found his anger growing toward the boy.

_Did you not realize that your actions might have hurt an innocent girl? What if she'd injured herself severely? What if she hadn't found her way out again? _

Kain bit down a growl and forced himself to focus on finding Lily and not going after the boy. After all, Lily hadn't found her way out yet and could still be lost forever.

It was only a little farther from where he'd seen the boy that Kain found Lily crumpled on the ground with tears cascading down her cheeks like a waterfall. Her Artemis Rod lay in front of her, as if she'd dropped it to catch her tears in her hands. While Kain was relieved at finding her finally, he felt immediately saddened at seeing how frightened she'd become while being lost.

"Lily-chan," Kain was only able to sigh, rushing forward toward her faster than he would have approached anyone else. Much to his own surprise he found that he'd even wrapped his arms around her. "I'm so relieved. You had everyone worried over you. What were you thinking walking so far into the woods?"

Lily just shook her head and sniffled some more. After a moment she managed to gasp, "I-I thought I saw somebody going into the woods so I followed him." She shook her head forcefully, but then seemed to regret it after becoming dizzy due to her already battered state. "I didn't know where I was going and – and -" She was interrupted by a fresh onslaught of tears.

Kain sighed, then reached forward to brush her hair back. "You're all right now, Lily-chan. Why don't we head back to the Academy? It would be good for you to lie down." _And also to have your wounds treated..._ He noted to himself. He couldn't see any deep cuts, yet a strong scent of blood resonated from Lily's body. Then he felt a familiar stickiness in his hand – the one that had brushed her hair back. Glancing down at her exposed forehead, Kain realized that Lily had a gash around the same location that she had a rather nasty bump. As if she'd been hit with something hard.

"Lily, what happened? Your head's bleeding," Kain commented upon seeing it.

He bit back a desire to lick the blood from his fingers, and instead studied her wound closer, as if that would tell him what had happened.

Lily wiped her eyes as she replied uneasily, "I-I don't know.. I must have hit a tree branch. Will you please just take me to the infirmary?"

Eager to leave himself, Kain nodded. "Do you want to collect your Rod before.."

Lily shook her head. "No. Leave it. It's useless to me now."

Kain scooped her up swiftly, much to Lily's surprise. "You're probably dizzy from your head being injured, so I'll carry you back."

For a while they walked in silence, or Kain walked while Lily leaned against his chest. It wasn't awkward silence, and in fact was so comfortable and had such a secure atmosphere (despite the fact that Lily was being carried out of a dense, dark forest by a vampire who had the perfect opportunity to suck her blood) that Lily was closing her eyes and falling asleep as they continued back to the Academy.

Just as sleep was about to overtake Lily, Kain asked, "Did you see a boy in the forest at all?"

Lily's eyes popped open suddenly and for a moment her breathing halted, wondering if Kain knew that she'd been approached by Shawn and told that she wasn't as human as she'd thought. "Di-Did you see a boy?" She stammered, trying to figure out how to discover what he knew without giving away anything.

"Yes. He seemed pretty upset and was talking on the phone about some girl... You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" Kain asked again, although he didn't expect her to know anything about the call. He wondered if she might know who the boy was.

Lily stammered again, "I – about a phone call? Yeah, I don't know... I – maybe he's just having girlfriend issues or some – something. You know, that's plausible, right?" Lily felt like smacking herself. She'd always been a bad liar without proper preparation.

Kain furrowed his eyebrows, wondering if she was really that dizzy and delirious. "I didn't really need to know what he was talking about on the phone so much whether or not you knew who he was. He had shaggy brown hair and his eyes were blue... I think. Do you know if he might be who you chased into the woods?"

Lily's expression told it all, yet she answered in the negative. "No. I don't know if I saw anyone by that description. I never saw anyone."

Kain nodded, feigning acceptance of her answer. However, he secretly vowed to get to the bottom of the relationship between that boy and Lily. Even if it took him to the darkest place on earth.

* * *

And my story is finally updated! I'm so sorry that it took me about four years! However, an advantage to this wait is that I am now a much better writer. :D

By the way, I am revising all of the old chapters of this story. I have made significant revisions of the first seven chapters, but I have only uploaded the revised versions of the first three since I changed some of chapter four's content. I would greatly appreciate if people would re-read the revised chapters (if people are still keeping up with this...). Thanks so much!

Please, alert me to any errors pertaining to the characters, grammar, or flow of the story. I greatly appreciate feedback!


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